


Taking Root

by hellonik



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: Chuck Criss - cameo, Ensemble Cast, Existential Crisis, Feelings, Light Angst, M/M, Road Trips, Romance, Romantic Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-22
Updated: 2013-05-22
Packaged: 2017-12-12 14:45:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/812755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellonik/pseuds/hellonik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darren’s having an existential crisis and drags Chris along with him while he tries to figure himself out. A road-trip of sorts happens, incidentally. vaguely inspired by Richard Siken, especially specifically You Are Jeff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking Root

**Author's Note:**

> there are a few quotes/references to Richard Siken and a song from Avatar the Last Airbender which I think is called Don’t Fall in Love with a Traveling Girl. the lyrics might be slightly off since I typed by ear.
> 
> [art is here](http://hellonik.tumblr.com/post/23105780194/taking-root-crisscolfer-certaintendencies-drew) \- go, see, stare, weep with envy. it's perfect.  
> [additional art is here](http://djchika.tumblr.com/post/33971798643/simply-because-nik-is-one-of-the-most-amazing) \- made by the lovely Deej. i cannot tell you how much i love it to bits.  
> and _additional_ additional art: [x](http://djchika.tumblr.com/post/47465330143/youre-in-a-car-with-a-beautiful-boy-and-he-wont) [x](http://froggydarren.tumblr.com/post/47534473768) [x](http://nosenuzzling.tumblr.com/post/46813939949/youd-take-me-to-pieces-and-id-let-you-and-do-you) [x](http://steadyasthestars-inthewood.tumblr.com/post/46752076089/he-and-says-through-his-terror-very-quietly-i) | there are literally _no words_ for how floored i was by these - i am so grateful and so humbled and really, truly, thank you is not nearly enough but - thank you, all of you.<3
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy this and if you do I hope you tell me – you’ve no idea how appreciative and grateful I am when I get feedback.<3
> 
> for text messages:  
>  _Chris_  
>  Darren  
>  **everyone else**  
> 

~

Chris is sitting in front of his laptop, relieved to have some time off Glee while they wait to start shooting for the fourth season. It gives him time to work on the script he’s been plotting out. He’s trying to work out some characterizations that have been giving him difficulty when his phone goes off. He struggles against the instinctual irritation at being interrupted as he answers it.

“This is Chris.”

“Where the fuck is Darren?”

Chris reaches out and snaps his laptop shut, brow furrowing.

“Lindsey?”

“Yes. Where the fuck is Darren?”

“I – don’t know. Isn’t it _your_ job to be aware of his every unsupervised step?”

“Don’t be a smartass. Are you sure you don’t know where he is? He’s not hiding out at your house, right? So help me, If you’re covering for him – “ Chris rolls his eyes, even as he feels a little flush of amusement roll through him. It has been known to happen.

The only thing that stops him short is the genuine concern that’s creeping into the publicist’s voice. Lindsey is stern and ruthless and a veritable stone wall when she needs to be – which is often. She’s old enough to get away with calling Darren “idiot boy” when he does something ill-advised, like disappear for 2 days to attend a music festival that will have him either drunk or high for the entire 48 hours, and young enough to scare the shit out of everyone around her when she’s angry. He does know for a fact that she holds no small amount of affection for Darren – because it’s Darren and he gets everyone to like him eventually, whether it’s begrudgingly or not.

“He’s not here. When did you lose him? Why would he – “

“Fuck. That fucking boy is going to drive me to my death-bed and I will haunt his ass until the day he’s driven to his. I don’t know. He’s  been – he’s seemed a little off lately.”

Chris pauses, swallowing past the feeling of worry swelling like a wave, slow and inescapable and heavy.

“ _Off_ how?”

“Just – tired. Strained. Off. I don’t know. You know how he is. You don’t know something’s wrong until he’s gone and fucked off to take care of it himself. I don’t have time for this. Call me if he deigns to reveal himself.”

She hangs up before Chris can protest and he sits there for a moment, dumb with surprise.

He wonders how he didn’t _notice._

He tries to pinpoint the moment when Darren started over-extending and showing the repercussions of it but he can’t.

Darren’s just always _Darren_. He’s loud and happy and _everywhere,_ all the time, seeming to never tire, never burning himself out, always basking in everything, delighting in it.

For someone who’s actually smaller than Chris, Darren makes Chris feel so small sometimes. He’s that type of person whose presence fills a room – gets noticed in this inexplicable way and draws attention to himself even when he doesn’t mean to, even when he’s calm. He’s _loud_ that way and it wouldn’t be particularly difficult for him to hide it if he’d been going through a rough patch – he’s good at distracting people from what’s going on beneath the surface, from making it seem insignificant.

Chris feels something hard and heavy settle in his stomach, a little sickening, like he’s failed at something. Chris likes being a good friend – likes noticing even if others don’t, likes being what they need, knowing what they need, putting aside whatever’s going on in his life to help. He hates that one of the friends most important to him is the one who managed to slip below his radar.

It figures it’d be Darren – Darren’s always been his blind-spot in just about every way.

Chris sighs quietly, twirling his phone in his hand and pushing his desk-chair side to side with his foot.  
  
He dials Darren and holds his breath while it rings.  
  
~

It’s all sort of sudden, how quickly Darren is so thoroughly insinuated into every part of Chris’s life – or maybe it was just gradual enough that he didn’t notice.  
  
It feels like it’s always just building, really, from the moment they met. Their friendship is so easy and they settle into it as if they’ve always had that role in each other’s life. Darren vaults over walls Chris wasn’t even aware he had and Darren’s probably the only person Chris knows who completely ignores personal space. Chris adjusts because he’s never been in this situation before, but he can adapt.  
  
Chris knows that everyone in the cast does their best to respect him and not cross any lines, but Darren just sort of waltzes in and is a bulldozer of enthusiasm. It took a few weeks, but eventually he’s literally bulldozing over Chris, tackling him down to the blue safety mat on set like it’s just a normal, everyday occurrence for Chris to have the solid weight of Darren pressing him into the floor.  
  
Darren’s complete and utter disdain for personal boundaries is probably what brings them so close so quickly because Darren isn’t careful with Chris. He’s a whirlwind of laughter and eagerness and he’s got the filthiest mouth Chris has ever heard and he’s probably one of the sweetest guys Chris has ever met. He doesn’t change a single bit of himself for anyone and Chris likes it, likes _him_.

Still, it takes him by surprise when he’s having a really genuinely awful day and the only thing he can think to do is call Darren. He’s flubbing his lines and missing his marks and he can’t seem to portray the emotion Kurt’s supposed to be feeling. He wants to _throw something_ because he’s so frustrated with himself and he needs to express that somehow without taking it out on everyone around him, and Darren’s the only thing that seems to pull focus from the chaos of his head.

He hides in his trailer, phone in a white-knuckled grip, pressed tightly to his ear, pacing back and forth and crumpling an empty water bottle into an unrecognizable shape, ranting to Darren until he’s out of breath and out of words. Darren stays silent until he’s done. Chris can only just hear his slow, easy breathing on the other end of the line.

Later, Darren will arrive at his door at 1 am with take-out and every Tarantino movie he owns and anything awful about his day will be forgotten in favor of Darren’s smile, wide and sweet and crinkling his eyes, movies and bags of take-out held up in front of him like an offering. Chris will be sort of bowled over because he’ll realize, right in that moment, that he’s not quite sure what he’d do without Darren and he’ll wonder how he missed that happening.

(He’ll think of Darren’s sweaters hanging in his closet and his freezer stocked with Darren’s favorite ice cream and feel starkly, startlingly _dense_ in a way that he never really has before.)

For now, in his trailer, finally sitting down and matching his breath to the one he hears over the phone, he feels just that little bit better.  
  
~

LA feels stifling to Darren, feels like it’s choking the life from his body, like it’s bleeding him dry of creativity and robbing the joy he has for what he does.  He doesn’t know why, doesn’t know why this shiny-dazzling-degenerate city, hollowed out but patched over with glamour to hide its inherently trivial existence, makes him feel so empty all of a sudden.  
  
Or maybe he just feels tired.

A fall to his knees, collapse on his bed and sleep the days away, crumple in on himself and just _be_ sort of tired.

  
He hasn’t left his apartment since he got back from the benefit concert the day before and his phone’s been off since then. He hasn’t shaved, wearing nothing but a loose pull-over and jeans that are so threadbare it almost looks like there’s worn-through holes in some places, hair a mess of curls.  
  
He’s sort of a wreck, really.  
  
He grabs his phone and his keys and slips out into the night, tired, tired, tired, and still moving because he doesn’t know what else to do.  
  
He drives.  
  
~  
  
Darren ends up 45 minutes outside of LA. He’s driven up a trail that overlooks the city and there’s a bench near the edge of the cliff that he settles himself on. He can see the LA lights sprawled out like stars in the darkness beneath him and the clusters of them in the sky. He feels like he’s surround by them, like he can take a step and he’ll walk on stars.  
  
It’s beautiful and the air is clean and stings his throat and nose when he inhales and he can smell trees. He has his guitar strapped to his back and he plays aimlessly, thoughtlessly, wild and chaotic, sweet and slow, aching and desperate in turn, in a way he hasn’t been able to lately because he hasn’t been able to _feel it_ in this fucking city with its facsimile of happiness. It’s good, all of it; it’s good but it’s not enough.  
  
He’s still too close and he wonders how far he can go before it’s far enough or before he’s pulled back by the leash around his neck that is his publicist and his responsibilities and his fucking persona that he needs to put up when people are dicks because he can’t tell them to fuck off. He can’t say _that’s none of your business, I have a right to some fucking privacy, to some part of my life and myself that I don’t have to share with the whole Goddamn world._  
  
Darren adores his fans –he loves them because they’re everything, they’re why he is where he is in life and where he is - is a _dream._  
  
It’s the tabloids and the rumors and the invasive questions that no one has any right to ask him that get to him. It’s the people who want to learn everything about him just so they can tear him apart more thoroughly.  
  
He watches the sun rise, the hues of pink and orange and purple bursting over the skyline and seeping out like paint spilled across the sky. Maybe it’s because he hasn’t slept or maybe it’s because he’s too tired and it’s making him emotional, or maybe it’s because he feels like it’s been ages since he’s been so _still_ and it feels like watching the world stop in slow-motion, but he can’t quite remember seeing anything quite as beautiful.  
  
His phone goes off at 8 am, 10 minutes after he’s finally turned it back on, ignoring every missed call and text and voicemail and turning off his ringer without looking at anything. He’s half-asleep, sprawled out across the bench, arm thrown over his eyes and beanie pulled over his ears, one leg dangling to the ground and brushing the dirt. The sound of it vibrating against the table is a _boom-boom-boom_ of noise in the quiet.  
  
His first instinct is to ignore it – he only brought it with him in case there’s an emergency. Talking isn’t very appealing to him, right now. He checks, just in case, and sees Chris’s name flash across his screen, along with his picture – one he and Chris took months ago, Darren pressing his cheek to Chris’s, both of them fighting over Darren’s pink wayfarers and Chris laughing, eyes squinted shut, small dimples playing across his cheeks, teeth peeking out. He feels his stomach clench.

He answers the phone.  
  
“ _Darren?”_ Darren inhales slowly, closes his eyes for a moment, running his hand through his hair and staying silent because for a second he can’t speak, can’t make a sound.  
  
He’s so fucking tired.  
  
“ _Darren? Everything alright? What’s going on?”_  
  
Darren wants to say _Hi Chris, I’ve missed you_ and he wants to say _I feel like I’m suffocating_ and _I don’t know what I’m doing anymore_ and _I am so fucking exhausted._  
  
He says, “Chris, meet me somewhere.”  
  
~  
  
It surprises Darren how much he takes to Chris, how quickly he attaches himself to him.

Darren does that, he knows – he _likes_ people and if he happens to really, really like you, he can’t help but want to spend as much time as possible with you. It hadn’t happened for him in awhile –  
not since the Starkids, really.  
  
But he meets Chris, who so clearly does not know what to do with him, yet doesn’t ask Darren to stop and instead adapts, adjusts. Chris is one of the best people he’s ever met and for a long time Chris was his only concern. He loves the entire cast, he does, but at first the only person he _noticed,_ really, really noticed, was Chris. Chris was _his person_ on set. Chris was the person he ran to, the person he vented to, the person he looked for when there was too many people in the room and he needed a familiar face.  
  
There’s a certain feeling he gets late at night sometimes, sitting next to Chris, eating unhealthy, delicious food and watching movies and laughing so hard his stomach hurts, hiding his face into Chris’s shoulder, and those moments feel distinct to him; the fabric of Chris’s shirt against his skin, the way Chris’s chest shakes when he laughs, the way he _smells,_ clean and soft and some sweet, subtle mixture of feminine and masculine. He’ll get this feeling, like he could spend the rest of his life here and he’d be happy.

He realizes that he hasn’t felt that way in too long and he doesn’t know what to do about it.  
  
Darren feels like he has no idea what the fuck he’s doing at all most of the time anymore.  
  
He keeps trying anyway, keeps loving what he’s doing, keeps _going –_ it’s all he knows how to do.  
  
~  
  
Chris pulls up an hour and a half later, gray Henley and jeans, casual and comfortable in his skin in a way that Darren watched happen over time. He’s not the same kid he first worked with years ago. It feels like a lifetime, really. Darren feels something unwind when he sees him.  
  
He doesn’t say anything, just steps out of his car and walks to the bench Darren’s still sitting on. He stares down at him with his hand shielding his eyes from the sun, hanging high in the sky and splashing over everything too-brightly, washing it white, eyebrows knit together.  
  
Darren breathes and sets his guitar down and then launches himself forward and hugs Chris because Chris hugs tight and warm and solid and grounding and that’s exactly what Darren needs right then.  
  
Chris lets out a small sound, a soft exhalation of surprise, and hugs Darren back. Darren hooks his chin over Chris’s shoulder and Chris settles into his neck, tucking his face there, and Darren _clutches_ and breathes, breathes, breathes.  
  
They end up sitting beneath a tree, overlooking the city, beneath the shade.

  
Chris’s voice is quiet when he speaks, eyes never leaving Darren’s face even as Darren looks over the city with something anxious churning in his stomach.  
  
“What’s wrong, Darren? Apparently you just disappeared off the map and your publicist has been trying to reach you.”  
  
“Yeah. Yeah, I know. How do _you_ know?”  His voice is low, a little rough, soft, and Darren realizes he hasn’t actually said anything out loud to anyone in two days.  
  
Chris just watches him, calm. “Lindsey called me and wanted to know if I’d seen you.”  
  
Darren heaves a sigh, frustrated, murmuring, “I don’t know. I don’t know what’s wrong.”  
  
Chris stays quiet, grips his shoulder and tugs him to the side until Darren’s head is in Chris’s lap and he’s running his fingers through Darren’s hair.  
  
Darren turns from his side to his stomach, tucks his face close to Chris’s hip, and presses his forehead there, wrapping his arms around Chris’s waist, letting himself be soothed.  
  
“You look exhausted.” Chris says, his voice soft.  
  
“I am. I’m exhausted and I’m – I’m _stuck_. I don’t – LA is – I’ve been in this fucking – _thing_ too long, this – _whatever_ it is that I’m feeling.  But I don’t know why I feel so off. Why I’m suddenly so drained by everything.”  
  
Chris laughs, pressing his fingers into Darren’s shoulder.  
  
“Darren, you need a _vacation._ You’ve been going non-stop since you started Glee. When you’re not wrapped up in Glee, you’re doing concerts or something for Starkid or benefits or an album or feeding the homeless and adopting puppies.” Darren laughs, breath puffing against Chris’s hip.  
  
Chris nudges his shoulder, laughing again.  
  
He pauses, his hand still on Darren’s shoulder, and says with a serious but oddly gentle voice, “You really do need a vacation. It’s not like your publicist will make a big deal out of you taking a couple of weeks. We’re not shooting for Glee right now – just do whatever you have lined up that you can’t reschedule and then take some time for yourself.”  
  
Darren sighs, rolls to his back and lets his head stay pillowed on Chris’s lap.  
  
“I don’t know. I can’t just – stop for a few weeks. I should be _doing_ things.”  
  
Chris snorts and Darren stares up at him, at his bright eyes, nose wrinkled a little, sunlight slipping between the leaves of the tree and hitting Chris’s neck and hands and knees.  
  
“Darren, you’re _always_ doing things.” His voice is wry, but he’s smiling still. “Just take a break before you burn yourself out completely.”  
  
Darren closes his eyes and tries to figure out where he’d even go, what he’d do.

He wants to _run,_ that’s what he wants, from everything, from everyone.  
  
Except maybe Chris. He’s not quite sure why - maybe because Chris is easy to be around and as much as he loves the Starkids, they aren’t quite who he needs around him right now _._

Darren pulls away, sits up and picks up his guitar, hugs it close to his body, absent-mindedly plucking the strings, playing a formless sort of melody that picks up a groove on its own, head ducked down, hair tickling his forehead.  
  
He feels restless. He can’t sit here and _think_ about this, can’t sit here planning it out because his entire fucking life is planned out right now and he has to take every chance he’s given to be spontaneous or he will go insane. He just needs to _go_ for once, for the first time in too long.

He lays his hand flat over the strings of his guitar, lifts his head and grins at Chris, who’s watching him patiently, plucking the sparse grass from the ground absently with a small smile on his lips, eyebrow lifting like he knows that Darren’s got an idea. Darren feels something settle – the restlessness still tightens his muscles, his stomach, spreads over his limbs, but he feels a slow sort of sureness overtake him.  
  
“What have you got planned for the next few weeks, Chris?”  
  
Chris eyes him, a dawning sort of realization unfolding across his features. “Darren, that is not –  
“ but Darren’s already up, hands waving as he speaks, talking right over Chris’s protest.  
  
“No, just – okay, just hear me out, man. I can’t – I honestly don’t know what I want right now, what it is I need right now – but I know that this is – _something_.”  
  
Chris’s eyes catch his, looking both wary and affectionate as he nods slowly.  
  
“Alright, okay. _God_ , you’re insane. What do you want?”  
  
Darren feels a thrill climb up his spine, wash through his chest, heavy and warm and electric, and an anticipatory grin curling his lips.  
  
~  
  
Chris is sort of in a predicament – Darren’s standing in front of him, hair an untamed mass of curls, dark eyes dropping down and then back up, meeting Chris’s gaze again, smile growing slow and mischievous across his face, and he’s sort of entirely helpless in the face of it.  
  
He is trying not to think about the fact that Darren doesn’t have a shirt on beneath his soft, well-worn sweater – and he knows because when Darren got up, his sweater rode up and his jeans rode down and there’s nothing there but the dimples of his lower back, the slow-blurring tan line that starts at the waist of his jeans.

There are _rules._ Chris doesn’t think about the line of Darren’s spine or the cut of his hips, the tilt of his head, his eyes or his smile or his hands, because that’s asking for trouble, for something Chris doesn’t want to have to deal with.  
  
There are moments when he sees Darren – when Darren says something or does something, and it makes Chris’s _stomach hurt_ for a single, aching second, and he pushes himself forward, forces himself past that second of want that’s so distinct Chris would swear it’s a physical thing.  
  
These are things Chris doesn’t think about.  
  
Those seconds, though – those are seconds that he still feels later, like a phantom ache, like a ripple-effect, like a rock thrown into a river, hands hitting the surface of the water, all reaction, reaction, reaction, hands clenching into fists and goosebumps and flickering eyes.  
  
But always, always, he pushes past, leaves the river and the rock but can’t quite forget them, and he’s still got his hands, the way they go white-knuckled, the way they tremble, just a little bit sometimes.  
  
These are things Chris doesn’t think about, and those seconds too – he wonders if the feeling he gets is anticipation or dread when he thinks fleetingly about when they'll come again.

  
Sometimes he feels like his world is still except for those seconds when suddenly he feels like his world is spinning so fast he can't quite take everything in - or maybe it's the opposite.  
  
But these are things he doesn't think about anyway, so Chris is not thinking about any of this.  
  
What he _is_ thinking is that he’s in a predicament because he’s not sure he can say _no_ to Darren when he’s looking at him like that. Darren looks so fucking _hopeful_ and he’s pretty sure Darren’s going to ask him to do something that would be really, really wise to _not do._  
  
And then Darren’s mouth is parting on his grin and he’s saying, “What I need, maybe – what I want – is to just run. I want to get as far away as I can because maybe that’s part of the shit I’m going through right now.”  
  
Chris just looks at him, with his dark hair and bright, bright eyes, and underlying that, the set of his shoulders that speaks of tension, the bags beneath his eyes, the exhaustion that runs a jagged line through his body.  
  
“Okay,” he replies slowly, the word dragging out and lilting at the end, searching for more.

Darren takes a deep breath, like he’s preparing for battle, says, “I don’t know where I want to go, but I want to drive somewhere. Anywhere that’s not here. And I – don’t want to go alone. Just – will you come with me, Chris? Please?”  
  
Chris is silent for a moment, because it’s really a _spectacularly_ bad idea. If they get caught, the media will actually lose their collective _shit_ and the fans will be even worse and Darren’s reputation will probably take enough hits to sink a _ship_.  
  
Even besides all that, Chris is just – he’s private about these things because he doesn’t want his relationships to be part of the media circus that is his life sometimes. Even more so with Darren, because he’s so careful with how the media and the fans see them – he doesn’t want anything taken out of context or blown out of proportion, doesn’t want any of them to get close enough to see how close he and Darren actually are.  
  
But then there’s Darren who actually looks so fatigued that it’s hurting Chris to look at him and who is looking back at Chris like he’s the answer he didn’t even know he was searching for in the first place.

  
Chris _missed it,_ he missed Darren completely _exhausting_ himself and he missed realizing that no one was telling Darren to _slow down._ Darren is one of his best friends, which means a lot more to Chris than he can actually admit sometimes. He grew up not having anyone and not once did he ever think, _this will change, I will find people who will become a second family to me._ That was never a hope he had, never something he kept close to him, but that’s what he got anyway and there isn’t a day that passes that he isn’t quietly, embarrassingly grateful for it _._  
  
So realistically speaking, if this is what Darren wants, Chris doesn’t have the willpower or the heart to say no to him.  
  
He says, carefully, “You know that if we get caught there is going to be hell to pay. Everyone will actually lose their mind.”  
  
Darren waves it away, eyes sparkling, and he’s saying, “We’ve got good PR, they can spin it into like, a Ryan Murphy-enforced Kurt-and-Blaine thing or something.”  
  
Chris is shaking his head, because that’s not _enough_ if this is a genuine concern for Darren, which Chris feels like it _should be_ but Darren is _Darren_ and he’s never really followed the basic rules of logic, both universally and personally.  
  
“Darren, that is not a chance you can really afford to take.”  
  
Darren just looks at him with his eyes steady and replies, easy like it’s nothing, “Honestly, I don’t actually care what anyone thinks, man. I just – I want this. I don’t know why. I just do. It feels right and I want you to come with me. Please?”  
  
Chris sighs quietly, can feel the way a reluctant grin is already lifting the corners of his mouth, drops his head forward and pushes the palms of his hands over his eyes, rubbing them – it’s the fucking _please_ that does it, pulls him down and he knows he’s not getting back up, knows he’s _in_. He knows that this might possibly be the worst idea but there’s nothing that could make him regret it, no matter how unwise it is, and that’s good enough.  
  
Darren’s laughing, already knowing he’s won, pulling Chris up and hugging him, tight and strong, and he’s saying, “Thank you. Thank you. I know what I’m asking you to risk and I know how important these things are to you and just – _thank you_.”  
  
Chris laughs, helpless and fond and he hugs Darren back, replying, “No, it’s fine, seriously. I need a break anyway. It’s not a big deal. Stop thanking me, you lunatic.”  
  
~  
  
It takes half an hour to convince his agent that no, she really, really _can_ reschedule everything happening over the next two weeks, except for the concert in New York that he’d never reschedule, no matter how much he might need to. It takes an hour to convince her that he really, honestly does not give a single _fuck_ what the media will think if they find out that he’s not only going on a road-trip to an as-of-yet undetermined destination, but that he’s doing it with his male, gay, on-screen boyfriend.  
  
(Darren doesn’t think about why his stomach seizes up when he’s reminded that as far as the media is concerned, he and Chris are just on-set friends. Never mind that Darren has clothes in Chris’s closet and Chris keeps a toothbrush in Darren’s bathroom and that he’s one of the best friends Darren’s got.)  
  
Darren doesn’t feel like driving back down to LA just yet, but knows he has to, that he needs to get clothes and necessities and so does Chris. Chris lets them stay where they are until they’ve both convinced their PR people that the world isn’t going to end if they go, and that really, they’re going regardless so they might as well work with them on rescheduling everything. He can hear Chris in the background, voice quiet but firm – _no, I really don’t care at this point. I realize that, but he needs this and he’s – yes. No, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to just – abandon him. And I was taking a break to work on the script anyway, now it’ll just be an actual vacation._  
  
Chris eventually hangs up the phone, looks over at Darren and grins and Darren feels more tension seep out of him. Chris is one of the best people he’s ever met and sometimes it makes his chest ache knowing that, knowing that he’s probably one of Chris’s best friends, too.

They agree to meet at Darren’s in a few hours – Chris has to go home and pack and let a few people know that he’ll be gone for a week or two. Darren knows he should let people know, too – he just doesn’t feel like dealing with anything, not right now. He’ll deal with it if he has to, but until then, he wants the least amount of things on his mind as possible.  
  
Darren gives Chris another hug before he gets into his car, pulls him close and tucks his face into Chris’s neck. The way Chris’s soft, high laugh vibrates up his stomach to his chest, the way Darren can feel it just as he hears it, is one of the most soothing things he’s ever felt and he sort of wants to never let him go.

Eventually, he gets into his car and makes the drive back. The closer he gets to LA, the tighter his chest feels, the heavier his body feels. He scratches his fingers through his hair, tugging a little and feeling frustrated with himself for feeling this way _now –_ this kind of bullshit existential crisis was supposed to have happened in fucking college, not when he’s in his twenties and living the life he’s dreamed about since he was a kid.  
  
By the time he gets home, all the tension he’d managed to let go of has already slammed back into him and he just wants to get out as quickly as possible. He packs the most comfortable clothes he owns, throws bottles of water and all the snacks in his pantry in a bag, and after a brief internal debate grabs his ukulele and his acoustic guitar too. He sends a message to the one other person he feels like he can deal with and sits on the floor in his living room, waiting for Chris.

~

To: Chuck  
I’m going on a vacation. Kind of.

**From: Chuck**  
 **Angels are singing, little brother!**  
 **I didn’t even know you knew what a vacation was!**

Fuck you.  
I don’t know why I bother telling you these things.

**Because I’m your favorite brother.**

Only because you’re my only brother.  
If I had another one, he would be my favorite.  
Just so you know.

**Lies. All you tell me is lies.**

It’s a possibility.

**Who’re you going with, then?  
Where you headed?**

Chris is coming with me.  
Not sure yet. We’re just gonna’ – drive.

**Huh. Interesting.  
What a fucking hipster.**  
 **You should come to SF.**  
 **FW concert at the Castro theater.**

What? What’s interesting?  
And fuck you, my glasses are prescription.  
But that actually sounds – like exactly what I want to do.  
So this is why I tell you these things even though you suck.  
Huh.

**Nothing, never mind.  
Also, I am awesome, watch your mouth.  
You think Chris would be okay with it?  
You haven’t been to one of our performances in a while.  
It’d be nice to see you, man.**

Whatever ass, don’t tell me then. Be that way.  
Chris won’t care. He’s only coming because I asked.  
When is it?

**3 days. You’ll make it in time, even driving.**

We’ll be there.

**Angels are singing!**

Least favorite.  
I prefer our non-existent younger brother who idolizes me.

**Even our non-existent little brother thinks you’re a dork, Darren.**

…fair enough.

**See you soon.**

Yeah.  
Thanks, by the way _._

**YOU LOVE ME. :D**  
 **I WOULD TOTALLY BE YOUR FAVORITE REGARDLESS**

Asshole.

**< /3**

~

  
It’s long stretches of road and long stretches of silence and they settle into it like fallen leaves touching the ground; gently, quietly. There’s something careful about them – maybe because Darren has circles around his eyes so dark they look like bruises, like even though he’s sleeping he’s not really resting, not recuperating. Maybe because Darren pulls out his ukulele, which will always make Chris smile, and strums this melody – this slow, soft, aching melody that lilts and twists like vines around Chris’s heart and _tugs_ and he has no idea why. Maybe because Darren’s hands move slow and he blinks like it’s taking effort to open his eyes every time they close and Darren’s body shifts in increments like he doesn’t have the energy to move his whole body at once.

  
The only reason Chris isn’t silently, discreetly panicking is because Darren still smiles like he means it, looks at Chris and grins and it’s bright and open and creasing the corners of his eyes. He still laughs like he can’t help it, like it’s bursting from the cavity of his chest before he can stop it, loud and sudden and deep, chest and shoulders shaking, sunlight catching his eyes and the curls of his hair when he tosses his head back. He still touches Chris like it doesn’t even occur to him to refrain – hand on Chris’s shoulder, fingers poking Chris’s ribs, his stomach, patting him on the thigh, batting at his arm.  
  
Chris lets them relax into it, driving along the winding roads, the sun bright but the air cool, stinging his nose when he inhales, and doesn’t put any pressure on Darren to talk to him yet.

It’s an 8 hour drive with the route they’re taking, and they plan on stopping for the night when Chris can’t bring himself to drive anymore. Darren’s trying to get Chris to let him drive the last leg of the trip, but Chris is silently planning on keeping the keys with him at all times and only switching off when he’s really, really tired of driving.  
  
They aren’t exactly in a rush though and they end up stopping as they go – sometimes Darren will just look at Chris and there’s something urgent in his eyes and Chris will pull over at the next restaurant or gas station. What might have been a fairly brief drive had they just gone straight-through ends up taking a good couple of hours longer. Chris doesn’t mind. It’s what they’re doing this for in the first place – to get Darren away for a while.  
  
There’s one point where they’ve been on the road for about 3 hours and Darren’s getting more and more restless, going quiet and eyes going distant, so Chris pulls over. There’s a bench in front of the gas station and it’s basically empty but for a car or two. Darren just gets out and sprawls himself on top of the table, laying flat on his back, staring up at the sky, glasses perched on his nose.  
  
Chris watches for a moment, hands in his pockets, smiling a little because only Darren would think this is acceptable behavior. He moves forward, settles on the bench, hiding his smile behind his hand when Darren’s hand goes to Chris’s hair, tugging on it absently. Chris tilts his head back, leaning his head against Darren’s hip.  
  
“Thank you for doing this for me.”

  
“Well, I like head massages, so…”  
  
Darren laughs and pokes Chris on the shoulder.  
  
“You know what I mean, Colfer. Thanks for coming with me.”  
  
“You already thanked me, Criss. No need.”  
  
Darren hums softly, tugs on Chris’s hair pointedly. Chris laughs and slaps at his hand but doesn’t move away.  
  
“ _You’re in a car with a beautiful boy_ …” Darren quotes, softly, quietly, voice a little raspy, and Chris feels heat and ice, in turn, work its way up his spine.

He takes a breath, turns around quickly and punches Darren in the stomach, laughing when Darren laughs, turning his eyes away so he’s not looking into Darren’s and trying to pretend it’s not on purpose.  
  
“Come on, before you decide to start re-enacting Shakespeare.”  
  
“I make no promises – I could just end up reciting to you in the car.”  
  
“You are my least favorite.”  
  
Darren grins at him, wide and easy, swings his arm around Chris’s shoulder, half-dragging him  
back to the car.  
  
“No, you love me. You want me to recite poetry at you all day and all night for the rest of your life.”  
  
“That would actually be horrifying. I might strangle you.”  
  
“Who says I wouldn’t like it?”  
  
Darren’s grinning at him from the other side of the car and he’s stopped Chris short just as he opened the driver-side door, staring at him openly.  
  
Darren’s smile is actually disgustingly smug and Chris says, quietly, disbelievingly, “You are an _asshole._ ”  
  
Darren winks and says happily, “You fucking _love_ me.”  
  
Chris sighs as he gets into the car, trying and failing to suppress his grin, laughing and shoving Darren when he tries to force him into a hug, smiling too-sweetly, eyes wide and sparkling.  
  
“Shut it, Criss. I hate you. Go to sleep – you need it.”  
  
Darren doesn’t sleep, but persists on singing every pop song known to man at the top of his lungs for an hour.  
  
Chris really, really doesn’t hate him.

  
~

**From: Ashley  
boo what the hell is goin’ on?  
what’s all this about a Big Gay Wedding between u and your mahhvelous mistah Criss?**

_To: Ashley  
Um. He needs a break?  
I am ignoring that last one._

**what does him needing a break have to do w/u?  
you’re really bad at ignoring things baby**

_He didn’t want to do it alone. Spontaneous roadtrip abound.  
The usual._

**huh. interesting.  
you guys be careful.  
this could be the mother of all shitshows.**

_No. No “interesting.” There is nothing interesting here.  
And we are. Trust me, we are well aware.  
All possible repercussions were taken into consideration._

**interesting.**

_Hate you._

**h8 u too baby <3**

_< 3_

_~_

**From: Lea  
WHY WAS I NOT INFORMED IMMEDIATELY**

_To: Lea  
Oh God._

**CHRISTOPHER.**

_Lea calm down.  
It’s not that big of a deal._

**not that big of a deal!?  
you’re going on a sexy vacation with your sexy co-star!  
probably doing sexy things!  
how is that not a big deal?!?**

_I hate EVERYONE._

**you love ALL OF US.  
now where are your priorities  
stop talking to me and go tap that luscious ass young man**

_Oh God._

~

**From: Canadian Bacon  
DUDE**

_To: Canadian Bacon  
not you too Cory_

**Mark & Harry say hi  
They want to know how Darren’s  
cough  
doing**

_Jesus_

~

  
“So tell me.”  
  
“Tell you what?”  
  
Darren’s not really evading – he honestly has no idea what Chris wants to hear. Darren’s just tired. He’s tired and everything is going too quickly and he’s not taking the time to enjoy everything anymore, because it’s just so much, and he’s just going and going and it’s overwhelming.  
  
Chris says with a wry smile in place, eyes darting to catch Darren’s before slipping back to the road, “What has you falling apart on me?”  
  
Darren laughs and stares out the window at the trees flying by, strumming his ukulele, soft and light, like everything feels right now, easy, easy, easy.  
  
He says, “No idea. Maybe I'm just really _that bad_ at not having you close all the time.”

  
Chris laughs, sighs, and glances at him again.  
  
“That’s not it.”  
  
“Not all of it, probably. Part of it though, fuck yes. Have you met me? I am one co-dependent  
bastard, Christopher.”  
  
Chris snorts, indelicate, lovely.  
  
“I do realize this, Darren Everett.”  
  
“No middle-names, Christopher Paul. We had an agreement.”  
  
“Oh, damn it, alright, never again. What _is_ all of it, then?”  
  
“No fucking clue, man. I’ll keep you posted.”  
  
Chris laughs and Darren grins, because Chris’s laugh is something that’s happy and open and loud and it’s music of its own kind, really, and he gets that feeling that’s been too infrequent lately – like he could stay here, right here in this moment, and be happy.  
  
He strums his guitar and watches the trees and wonders if maybe the only thing that’s wrong with him is he needs time away from being _Darren Criss_ and just needs to be Darren Everett.  
  


~

Chris knows that Darren doesn’t like silence. He’s okay with not talking, but he likes background noise, whether he’s creating it himself or it’s the tv or a radio.  
  
It’s something Chris had to get used to – whenever Darren was at his house, there was always a movie in the DVD player, one they’d both seen enough times to know it word-for-word, even if they weren’t watching it, or even if they weren’t in the room at all. Or he’d pull out Chris’s iPod dock and put it on shuffle, setting the volume too low to be disruptive but loud enough to fill the space.

  
Chris was okay with silence – it wasn’t something he’d ever thought about, but then his life wasn’t like Darren’s; Darren’s life is loud. Everything about it, everything he’s done – it’s loud, it’s vibrant, it draws attention even if that wasn’t the intent. Darren  _himself_  is loud. Chris has lived a relatively quiet life up until Glee, but he can’t help but think that Darren’s life must have been filled with magic since the day he was born, with music and life and laughter and a deep-seated sort of happiness that never really went away, no matter how difficult things got.

  
(Chris doesn’t think Darren knows how to function without finding happiness in the little things, without letting those things lift him. He flies right above the things that break down everyone else, sails right over it and keeps smiling like he doesn’t know what a fucking  _wonder_ he is to witness.

  
Chris didn’t know what it was like, being in the air, feeling the ground drop away while everything you wanted, even if it’s just in that moment, even if it’s a little thing but you  _wanted it,_ became yours. He didn’t know how to let those things lift him like they lifted Darren – he was still stuck on the ground, caught in the  _ugly_ of it all, until he met the cast and they somehow turned into this rag-tag family. Until he met Darren.)  
  
Darren’s dislike of silence doesn’t change when they’re in a confined space. He’s either got the radio on, singing along to  _literally_ everything that comes on, no matter how awful it is, or he’s got his ukulele out and he’s making music for them. Any time Chris looks over he has to laugh, seeing Darren with the tiny instrument in his lap, still managing to look like he knows what he’s doing with it.  
  
Chris likes to hear things he likes over and over again – can’t help it, he just wants to hear it as much as possible. Sometimes he’ll ask Darren to repeat a melody and Darren will do it, smile at Chris with a glint in his eye, something soft and fond and  _sweet,_ and he’ll hum along wordlessly, and Chris  _loves_ it. He can’t understand how it sounds so good despite not even having any lyrics, despite it being sort of messy and raw and,  _ridiculously_ , sounding better for it.  
  
Chris thinks it’s because Darren’s got music running through every part of him – like he’ll bleed it, like it’s settled there in his bones, an indelible thing. It’s beautiful really, in a way that’s actually impossible to not notice and it’s sort of funny in a really painful, helpless sort of way.

  
Chris doesn’t know what to do in the reality of all that. He doesn’t know how to  _stop noticing_. He does his best to ignore that he’s noticing at all with minimal success and still feels this twinge deep in his stomach, like a reminder of everything he’s doing his best to forget.  
  
Darren is the most frustrating human being Chris has ever met, but he’s here anyway. He’s here at 10 o’clock at night, pulling into a hotel room 5 hours outside of LA with Darren beside him, eyes closed and head leaning against the window. He’s  _here_  and Chris wonders what that says about him.  
  
He stops wondering – pokes Darren in the ribs and goes and checks them in under pseudonyms and they walk in separately, Chris grabbing most of the luggage, and they make their way to the room they’re sharing, and he forces himself to  _stop wondering_ , convinces himself that it’s working _._  
  
~  
  
Darren collapses on the bed as soon as they step through the door, face-down, a loud groan muffled by the comforter. Chris snickers quietly, pats him on the back as he passes.

“I’m claiming the shower first since I drove all day, deal?” Chris informs Darren over his shoulder, digging through his bag.

Darren offers a quiet grunt in acknowledgment and Chris rolls his eyes, a grin tugging at his lips.

“I’m the one who did all the work today, Darren. Why are you the one who can’t move right now?” Chris teases.

Darren just groans, makes a move like he’s going to reach for a pillow before giving up and letting his arm flop back to the bed.

“You are pathetic,” Chris sing-songs, slipping into the bathroom just as a pillow thumps against the door.  
  
By the time Chris is done in the bathroom, he feels heavy and bone-tired, like the hot water sapped all his remaining energy. He’s already got his pajamas on – sweats and a ratty Little Green Men toy-story t-shirt. Darren’s lying on the bed closest to the bathroom, eyes closed and a furrow between his eyebrows, and he looks s _o small_ in a way Darren never does.  
  
He’s on his side, arms tucked beneath his head and his knees curled up loosely to his chest, and Chris feels his entire body tighten because he just wants to wrap himself around Darren, cover him and keep him close so he knows that Chris is there in a way that Chris obviously hadn’t been if he had missed all of this. It’s sharp and hard and he feels it in his stomach, his chest, and the only thing that stops him is the fact that Darren opens his eyes, looking a little hazy, and he’s smiling slow and easy at Chris,  _genuine_ , which is a relief Chris hadn’t known he needed.  
  
Darren turns to his back, lifts his hand toward Chris, voice a little raspy when he says, “My turn.”

  
Chris grins, slips his hand around Darren’s and pulls. Once Darren’s standing, before he can move away, he tugs sharply and Darren stumbles into him, laughing a little.  
  
Chris smiles, tucks Darren close to him and  _squeezes_ and Darren huffs quietly, body absolutely  _melting_ into Chris’s, pressing his smile into Chris’s shoulder.  
  
Chris says very quietly, “I am very happy that I’m here with you.”  
  
Darren makes this low, soft noise, and Chris can feel it vibrate up his chest, and he tightens his arms around Chris. Darren hugs with his whole body, pressing into Chris from knee to chest and it only makes Chris want to hold on tighter.  
  
~  
  
Their beds are comfortable, by all accounts; all soft pillows, heavy comforters, and cool, smooth sheets, but cold in the way that hotel-room beds are. There’s really nothing comforting about them – they feel alien and stiff and even though Darren’s had time to get used to sleeping in them in the past couple of years, right now what he needs is to not feel as if everything’s unfamiliar, even if it is. He hasn’t felt anything close to comforting in too long – not even his own bed, these days.  
  
He’s tired and his body aches in strange ways, like his mental exhaustion is seeping into his physical body, and he can’t be bothered to really think things through, can’t convince himself to change his mind once the urge is there. So he crawls out of his bed and into Chris’s, and Chris is asleep already but he stirs, looking up at Darren and reminding Darren inexplicably of a cat, with his wide eyes glinting in the half-lit room, bright and slow-blinking and unguarded.

There’s this feeling he gets sometimes, and it creeps up on him, and he keeps running away from it because he doesn’t know what it means – just knows that it feels like something terrifying. Because sometimes he thinks he’d like to trace the lines of muscle in Chris’s back, memorize the tilt of his smile, press close and feel him from head to toe, knee to chest;  _know_ every part of him. He pushes past it, leaves it behind, but only manages to feel like a little boy hiding beneath his blanket, just waiting for whatever it is to come for him.  
  
He offers a grin, says, quietly as he makes his way under the cover, “I’m cold,” with a shrug. It’s a half-truth at most, but Darren’s too tired to fully explain himself.  
  
Chris quirks an eyebrow at him, murmuring in a sleep-raspy voice even as he’s shifting over to make room for Darren, “That’s why there’s a heater, Darren.”  
  
Darren grins at him, feels warmer already as he settles in next to Chris, curling up on his side and facing him.  
  
“Yeah, man. You.”  
  
Chris rolls his eyes but there’s a grin curling his lips, Darren can see the flash of his teeth, and Chris is letting his head drop back down, laying on his back but his head turned toward Darren.

Darren just watches him, the line of his jaw and the expand-contract of his chest, the ease that traces a gentle path through his body. He falls asleep like that, drops into it effortlessly and gently and the last thing he remembers is the way Chris’s eyes are like slivers of glinting silver in the dark.

~

**From: Joey  
how’s your head**

To: Joey  
Still kind of a mess.

**fight on, warrior.**

Thanks for the encouragement Joey.

**manly brohugs all around**

Followed by not so manly kisses on the cheek?

**dude. always.**

~

**From: Dianna  
Darren  
Darren.  
just tell me what’s going on.**

To: Dianna:  
Like just in general or

**Darren.**

Yeah.  
I may be having a slight existential crisis.

**Ahhhh.**

Yep.

**Chris?**

Might actually be part of that existential crisis?

**Huh.**

Yep.

**Let me know how this all goes down.**

Gossipmonger.  
I’ll keep you posted.

**Nothing but concern for you, dear friend. Nothing but concern.  
Good.**

~

  
“So what are we doing when we get there?”  
  
It’s been quiet, Darren’s head lolling against the head-rest, eyes just a glimmer beneath half-lowered lids. He smiles slowly, a muted sort of bright, like the sun breaking through clouds, and it’s a little bit beautiful, even in comparison to the way Darren’s smiles usually leave you with sun-spots dancing in your eyes.  
  
Chris grins, eyes slanting toward Darren pointedly, impatiently.  
  
“I don’t know. I thought I'd show you the city. Chuck’s playing at this old theater in the Castro. Thought we’d go watch him.”  
  
Darren’s voice is lazy, not even bothering to speak in full sentences, and Chris loves it because Darren’s so exhausting in his enthusiasm sometimes that it’s nice to see him  _still_ for once. With most of the exhaustion gone and the tense line of his body slowly unwinding, Darren looks better than he has since the whole trip started, and Chris can feel himself loosening in response, a vague, half-acknowledged tension seeping out.  
  
“The illustrious Chuck Criss. I haven’t seen him in a while. How’s he been?”

“Like you don’t know. I know you guys text.”  
  
“Occasionally. And I know you know. I’m the one who told you.”  
  
Darren hums noncommittally, his smile turning a little impish, and Chris laughs and reaches over to pinch Darren on the arm, Darren scrambling back until his back is against the door and one leg is drawn up.  
  
Chris is snickering, eyes narrowed, still attempting to pinch him, and Darren’s got his head thrown back, laughing loud and unrestrained, one foot pushing against Chris’s thigh in defense. His shoulders are resting against the half-opened window, hair flying in the wind, glasses perched on his nose.  
  
Chris never wants to look away.  
  
He turns his eyes back to the road, saying, through fading laughter, “It’ll be good for you, seeing him. I know you miss your family.”  
  
“Unimaginably. You help though.”  
  
Chris glances over, and Darren’s got a smile playing at his lips, eyes on Chris, and Chris tries and fails to suppress his smile, turning his eyes to the road again.  
  
“You’re like a snake-charmer, Darren.”  
  
“I can’t decide if I want to be offended or not. I can’t decide if I  _should_ be.”  
  
“It’s a compliment. Stop playing your  _bin_  now, I am thoroughly charmed,” Chris replies, voice dry but a smile slanting his lips.  
  
“Is that what it’s called? The flute-thing they play? I’m actually impressed that you know that.”  
  
“Yes. My head is full of completely useless information, you know that by now,” Chris says, voice airy and blithe.

There’s a pause, and Chris waits for it, and then - “So I charm you, do I?”

Darren’s grin is Cheshire-cat wide, and Chris shoots him an unimpressed look, one corner of his mouth tucking up into a wry smile.  
  
“That was  _sarcasm_. You are the least charming human being I’ve ever met.”  
  
Chris can feel Darren’s eyes on him, staring at him solemnly, and Chris resolutely keeps his gaze fixed forward.  
  
“If I were any more charming, I'd be a Disney prince.”  
  
Chris fights it for a second but the moment he glances over and sees Darren grinning at him like a maniac, he cracks, barking out a sudden burst of laughter.

  
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that, buddy.”  
  
It’s probably true anyway, but Chris doesn’t say that out loud.  
  
~  
  
Eventually they get to San Francisco. It’s late and it’s the middle of the week, but the streets aren’t exactly quiet. They pass restaurants-turned-jazz-clubs and bars still open, light pouring out from the doors as they drive by.  
  
Darren has Chris pull over once they get to a residential neighborhood by Darren’s direction. They are headed to Darren’s family-home – he and Chuck stay there whenever they’re in town, their parents out traveling most of the time, and Darren’s insistent that he drive the rest of the way.  
  
Chris is exhausted anyway, all the driving and his own inclination to sleep in restless start-stops most nights catching up with him, so he appreciates it, climbing none too gracefully over the center console while Darren trots around the front of the car. He’s watching Chris and laughing, nothing but glinting teeth and a silhouette in the headlights of the car, backlit by the dim streetlights in the otherwise dark suburban street.

  
“I’m  _tired,_ you dick,” Chris grumbles lazily, sinking down onto the seat, Darren still snickering as he climbs into the car.  
  
“I’ll get us to safety, young nomad. You can sleep.”  
  
“You are an astoundingly bizarre young man. I don’t even know how to respond to that.”  
  
“ _Don’t fall in love with a traveling girl, she’ll leave you broken, broken-hearted…”_

  
“Really.”

“Though I suppose in our case it’d be boy.”

“ _Really.”_  
  
Chris’s head is lolling against the head-rest, deeply unimpressed, half-lidded eyes watching Darren, who’s still grinning, eyes dark and liquescent in the soft, quiet dark of the car. He watches until he can’t keep his eyes open anymore, lulled to sleep by Darren’s low, soothing humming.  
  
The next time he wakes up, Darren’s pulling him out of the car and prodding him toward a two-story house that’s crowded right up against other two-story houses. He’s pushed inside and up the stairs, into a room he’s never seen before but could still probably identify as Darren’s regardless, despite the fact that he’s only half-awake.

He feels  _distressingly_  more tired than when he fell asleep in the first place, barely able to keep his eyes open, and every time he blinks it’s genuinely aggrieving to have to open them again. He can’t quite bring himself to be bothered by it when Darren’s guiding him by the shoulders, pushing him gently into a truly  _spectacularly_ soft bed.  
  
Darren’s a solid weight that collapses next to him and Chris vaguely registers the movement of him stripping off his sweatshirt before he’s curling up next to Chris. Chris pushes his shoes off with his toes and manages to slip off his own hoodie, but doesn’t even make a move for the button of his jeans – he’s not nearly coordinated enough to manage it right then.

  
He thinks he might feel Darren’s arm coming around his waist, might hear him murmur something softly and quietly into his ear. His body is already sinking into sleep on an exhale, between one moment and the next, warm and relieved and blissfully, gloriously exhausted, before he can really consider it.  
  
~  
  
Darren pulls Chris out of bed at 9 am the next day, all wide smile and sparkling eyes, dragging him around and giving him the tour of his childhood home. The house is small and cluttered with memories – pictures and diplomas and trophies and pictures, pictures, pictures.  
  
Chuck is in the living room, taking the time to relax until he has to go meet up with the rest of his band. They manage to exchange a hug and a rapid-fire update on each other’s lives before Darren’s tugging him away to see the rest of the house.  
  
Chris is leaning close to a picture sitting on one of Darren’s many, many bookcases, informing him, loudly, “You asshole. I can’t believe you were adorable at that age. No one is adorable at that age. Go away, you are my least favorite person.”  
  
Darren’s lounging on his bed, against the wall, watching Chris with this fond smile playing across his lips, something warm and heavy and sweet in his eyes.  
  
“You are a filthy, filthy liar, Christopher.”  
  
“ _Chuck!_  Where are you? You’re my new favorite!”  
  
Chris is already spinning on his heels, walking out the door and yelling down the stairs, when Darren laughs and  _flies_ at Chris. He wraps an arm around Chris’s waist and leans all his weight on him, Chris stumbling to the side, making a pathetically half-hearted attempt at fending Darren off.  
  
“C’mon, I’ll make you food. I know little Chris must be hungry,” Darren coos, patting Chris’s stomach soothingly, and Chris stares at him with raised eyebrows, a blush climbing high on his cheeks before he can fight it down.  
  
“You are deeply,  _deeply_  disturbed.”  
  
“Yes, but I make fucking amazing food. Come. I’ll make you a feast fit for a king’s king.”  
  
“Jackass,” Chris murmurs quietly but follows after Darren anyway, grinning a little to himself.    
  
(He makes him some weird, delicious amalgamation of breakfast and lunch that consists of fruit and yogurt and hot sandwiches. Chris is appeased. He pats Darren’s shoulder and tugs on his hair, murmuring,  _okay, favorite again,_ and laughing through the twinge in his stomach when Darren’s entire face lights up like it means something.)  
  
~  
  
It’s not long after lunch that Chuck has to leave, and as soon as he does Darren’s staring at Chris with wide, excited eyes.  
  
“Wanna’ come with me?”  
  
Chris laughs because Darren is akin to an over-eager 10 year old sometimes and it is  _atrociously_  endearing.  
  
(His first response should be, “ _Where?”_ Instead he ducks his head to hide his smile and says, “ _Sure_.”)  
  
The way Darren smiles at him is sort of worth the wholly inadvisable blind-faith, anyway.  
  
(Darren walks out of the bathroom 10 minutes later wearing jeans that are rolled up to his calves and a hoodie and Chris is a little suspicious of just how casual it is.)  
  
San Francisco isn’t a place that Chris is very familiar with. He’s been once or twice, but he’d lived such a sheltered life before Glee, before world tours and private planes, and he’s never been able to come and explore San Francisco like a lot of people have. Darren, though – Darren is so obviously at home in this city. He just completely lights up; bright and exuberant and  _alive._ It’s such a relief to see it, because Chris hadn’t realized how absent that sort of enraptured delight had been recently until now.  
  
Chris just sort of – goes with it. He feels like this trip should be for Darren, but Darren spends the rest of the day playing tour-guide for Chris. Chris thinks, though, that this is exactly something Darren would love doing. Showing someone else his love for something, trying to get them to love it the way he loves it. Darren’s got magic in him – sees magic in everything else too and tries to show everyone else what he sees, tries to show people how to see the magic in things the way he does, no matter how sharp-edged and jaded they are.  
  
~  
  
Darren drags Chris onto a bus and they take a 2 hour ride to a beach that’s on the outskirts of the city. There aren’t too many people, but it’s not completely empty, as Darren expected. He used to love to come here with Chuck, as kids. They’d play Frisbee and adopt any and every dog there for the day, happy and beautifully simple in that way that only kid-summers are.  
  
He manages to convince Chris to spend the rest of the day there with him. He watches the way Chris’s eyes crinkle at the corners when he’s trying to hide his smile – feels  _warm_ with the amount of affection that wells up in him.  
  
The moment they get close enough, Darren drops his guitar in the sand and strips off his hoodie and drags Chris, fully-clothed except for the sweater his manages to rip off, into the ocean, laughing like a maniac and cheering when Chris dives beneath the waves.  
  
When Chris drags him out again, Darren wraps his arms around Chris, rubbing his hands along Chris’s skin, watching the way goosebumps roll down his body a little too closely.

He’s fascinated by it really, fascinated by  _Chris._ Chris, whose v-neck is nearly translucent now, sticking to his chest and stomach, wet eyelashes clumping together, sand in his hair. He reminds Darren of all those beautiful, simple summers and Darren can only wrap himself tighter around Chris, maybe hoping to contain everything that Chris  _is_  in his arms so there’s not a single bit lost. Chris needs to remain  _Chris_ in every way because sometimes Darren feels like Chris is the only thing – the  _only thing_.  

Darren breathes, slow and careful, shakes himself out and drags them over to the one spot on the beach where the sun breaks weakly through the clouds, and they lay there. Eventually Chris warms up, goose-bumps fading.  
  
(Darren watches that, too.)  
  
They watch the slow sunset, sitting too close, and Darren still has his arms around Chris – still can’t bring himself to let him go just yet.  
  
~  
  
Darren manages to convince some of the people at the beach to spare some wood once it gets dark and too cold, even with both of them pulling their sweatshirts back on. They get a bonfire going, small enough that they end up huddling together, but warm enough for both of them.  
  
Darren’s sitting next to Chris, who’s standing with his arms wrapped around himself. His nose and ears are red from the cold and his skin looks moon-pale, eyes bright like they’re reflecting water, and he doesn’t even really look human in this way that Darren has never gotten used to.  
  
Darren’s hands are trembling and he’s breathing in air that smells like sea-salt. He can hear the waves crashing and he’s  got his guitar in his lap, toes digging into the sand, playing this song, this one melody that he hears like an echo in his head every time he’s with Chris, can never stop himself from picking up the nearest guitar and playing it.  
  
He doesn’t know how he  _missed it,_ doesn’t know how it took him this long.  
  
He’s watching Chris watch the seagulls, laughing this sweet, delighted laugh at the way they hop around digging for food, like a child still fascinated by the world and its intricacies. He feels shaken down to the core, thinking helplessly,  _there it is_ , the loose thread, the reason he felt so wrong, so stifled, like he didn’t fit in his own skin.  
  
Because he’s sort of been in this a while now, hasn’t he? He’s hurtled right into  _needing_ Chris in a way that’s terrifying and painful and  _perfect,_ and he didn’t even recognize it, didn’t even realize how wholly and completely Chris has become a part of him. How he’s already given up every part of himself, taken himself to pieces just to build Chris back in with him; Chris could take him apart and he’d let it happen, be helpless before him.  
  
It’s so much more tremulous than he thought it’d be; fragile, fragile, fragile, like a thread between two tin-cans, and he’s got to treat it with care, because it’s precious, this thread, this  _thing,_ connecting him to Chris, making Chris the person who keeps him falling and steady all at once. Making Chris the reason he can’t even really handle life much anymore without his presence being a constant thing, and how is Darren this person? How did he become this person who thinks these things about someone else?  
  
(He’s looking at Chris, only lit by the fire, throwing shadows over his face, lighting the line of his jaw and his eyes and the hollow of his throat, and he’s got his answer, then, doesn’t he? He should be more concerned than he is.)  
  
He and says through his terror, very quietly, “I told you I’d keep you posted, right Chris?”  
  
Chris looks at him, red nose and red lips and bright eyes, hums and says “You did. Figure yourself out yet?”

“Getting there.”  
  
Chris quirks an eyebrow at him, smile playing across his lips.  
  
“Care to inform me?”  
  
Darren looks at Chris, this boy that burrowed into his life, beneath his skin, into his heart like a physical thing, and he sort of wants to cry and he sort of wants to laugh, but mostly he wants to find a rock he can hide beneath. Hide there in the dark and protect this feeling he has so it doesn’t get broken, wants to protect the fragility of it, the way it feels like it shouldn’t see the light of day because that means someone else can see it, touch it, ruin it.  
  
He sets his guitar aside, turning his body so he’s facing Chris, takes a deep breath, salt hanging in the air, feels like he’s inhaling it and it’s sitting in his lungs, gritty and heavy and choking his breath and his words.  
  
He forces past it, another breath, another breath, another breath, all salt, says, thick and raspy and gravelly, “I’m in love with you.”                                                                                                                                  

Darren feels like saying it out loud should feel like something – like it’s suddenly  _real_ , feel resonant and heavy, or maybe like the last nail in the coffin – no going back, no taking it back, just this, this truth suddenly out and floating in the air between him and Chris.

It doesn’t.

Saying it is  _nothing_  to  _feeling_  it, saying it is  _nothing_ in comparison to how hard it was to come to the conclusion at all – to the way he had to fight through his own head and his own feelings to get to the truth of it. Nothing to the way knowing it and feeling it leaves him raw and open, messy emotions flowing out like a crashing wave, knowing it in a way that doesn’t need to be said out loud to know it’s true, shaking his bones, his heart.  
  
Chris is looking down at him with wide eyes, face blanched and hands loose at his sides, and he says, broken and soft, on a breath that sounds like it was punched out of him, “ _Darren._ ”  
  
“I  _know._  I don’t – I’m sorry I just - _”_  
  
 _“_ No – don’t – that’s not – don’t say  _sorry,_ Jesus, Darren – “  
  
“I just – I know this is probably not what you –“  
  
“Don’t even finish that – are you kidding me? I mean – you’re. You’re  _you_  that’s – I just –  _why?_ ”  
  
Darren huffs a laugh, feels dizzy and suspended and weightless, like his strings are cut.  
  
“Do you want a fucking list, Chris? I don’t  _– you’re_   _you._ That’s – the only explanation I’ve got.”

Chris takes a step forward, sinks into the sand right in front of Darren, their knees pressing against each other, and Chris laughs a little, soft and breathless, hands coming up to rub over his face, covering his eyes. His fingers part, bright eyes peeking out between them and watching Darren, lets out an empathic “Fuck,” on an exhale, still laughing a little.  
  
Darren laughs, groans, feels like he’s falling apart, because  _Jesus Christ, this is the worst, why do people do this?_  
  
Darren looks at Chris, and it takes him a moment to realize what it is, just there, lurking in Chris’s eyes – he looks  _terrified,_  and Darren wonders what that means, feels something lift and settle in him despite not knowing. Chris is right there with him and Darren doesn’t know why Chris is the one scared here, but Chris has always made Darren feel like he’s not alone in whatever it is he’s feeling, and it’s something he’s always taken comfort in, something that’s always left him weak with gratitude, with an awed sort of appreciation – now isn’t any different.  
  
Chris is still watching him, shoulders shifting like he’s settling into something, hands dropping away from his face and digging into the sand, gaze steady, and he looks confused and doubtful, like he doesn’t know where his next step will take him, but it doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t hurt because Chris is still there and he’s not saying,  _I don’t feel the same way, you’re just a friend._ As long as he doesn’t say that, Darren’s okay, he’s got a chance, and he’s good at riding on hope, he’s good at letting it drive him and ignoring everything else. It’s how he got where he is and he’s hoping it’ll work again, just once more – that’s all he needs.  
  
Chris says, carefully, so careful, like he’s choosing his words, “Is that – why you felt so off back in LA, other than the fact that you  _never stop?”_  
  
Chris’s voice goes wry at the end there, but Darren knows him well enough to know that it’s a serious question, that Chris is trying to work something out in his head.  
  
“I – sort of, I guess. I’m just – I’m not good at not having you be a steady presence in my life, Chris.” Honesty is all he’s got. He doesn’t know if it’s going to help him here, if it’s going to be the right answer for Chris, but he doesn’t have anything else to give.  
  
“I think – I really just needed a break from feeling like – like a fucking commodity all the time and from constantly doing shit, as much as I love it. But it was just worse because I hadn’t seen you since the break and everything felt like too much without you there to – make things better.”  
  
Darren’s still watching Chris and the confusion in Chris’s eyes falls away and he takes a deep breath like he’s steadying himself. Darren’s not sure why the way Chris’s expression shifts has his stomach knotting up but it does, and Darren’s digging his toes into the sand and clenching it in his hands and he thinks he might remember the way it feels as it slips right through his fingers for too long.  
  
“So then maybe – maybe you just miss me, Darren. Friends miss friends all the time, and you and I spend the most time with each other because of Kurt and Blaine. It makes sense – I think that’s. That’s – all it is.”

Darren’s not sure whether he wants to laugh or cry – trust Chris to try and logic Darren’s feelings away for him.  
  
The things is – Darren knows, knows it in this intrinsic, bone-deep sort of way that’s both terrifying and comforting, that that’s not what it is at all. He feels like his stomach is sinking to his knees and he feels like every beat of his heart is an echo of it; falling, falling, falling.

It’s horrifying.  
  
“Chris that’s – that’s not it. At all,  _fuck_.” The laugh that escapes Darren’s mouth, lingering on that last word, is dry and brittle and terrified and Darren’s just – lost, on completely unfamiliar ground, but he  _knows_ , knows that it’s not that so clearly and definitively that it  _hurts_.  
  
“It’s more than just missing you – it’s that you were  _missing_.” He doesn’t have any other way to say this, and Chris’s expression shifts again and he’s moving to his knees, shuffling closer to Darren and setting his hands on his shoulders and he’s not looking away from Darren’s gaze and Darren’s just – weak with it, really, with everything he’s feeling.  
  
“Darren – I don’t know. I don’t – how do you  _know_?” And Chris doesn’t sound skeptical, he sounds a little desperate, like he wants to understand, like he wants to be sure but isn’t.  
  
“I don’t – I don’t know. I just do. Just – just trust me? I need this to  _not end_ right now, okay? I – need this, still. Can you please – come with me? To New York, for the concert. Come with me. We’ll leave after the concert, we’ll fly back from New York if we need to, if you want to get back to LA quick. But – please?”  
  
Chris breathes, looks at Darren with eyes that always leave Darren a little caught-out, wrong-footed, and he says, voice soft, “Okay. Okay, alright. I’ll go with you.”  
  
And Darren wants to laugh, wants to say  _you’ll see, you’ll see, I’ll show you, you’ll be just as sure as I am,_ but instead he pulls Chris in and hugs him like he won’t ever let go, and Chris leans over him, hugs right back, body just – sinking into Darren’s.  
  
Darren’s always been good at riding on hope and nothing else, and at least he’s got a little desperation to help him out here, too.  
  
He hugs Chris tighter, tucks his nose into Chris’s neck and breathes him in. He still smells like the ocean a little, and like himself and like Darren just underneath that, and it has heat curling around the base of Darren’s spine, his shoulders, making him shiver.  
  
This is everything he wants and it’s a terrifying feeling, knowing you’ve got everything you could possibly desire in your arms. He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to be willing to ever let it go. He doesn’t know how people  _do_ this _, handle_ this kind of feeling, the way it chews you up and leaves you raw and open; he doesn’t know how  _he_  can do this.  
  
He doesn’t know a thing. He just knows that this is where he wants to be and there’s not a single thing to be done about it and he doubts his ability, his strength, to do anything to change that even if he could.  
  
~  
  
Chris doesn’t know what he should be feeling. Doesn’t know this feeling he has now – like his heart’s in his throat, like it’s lodged there, or maybe like his body’s too small for the amount of breath he needs to fill his lungs – like he’s just jumped off a cliff and he’s hurtling toward the ground and everything is going too fast and too slow all at once and he just wants to cling to something on the way down, just to have something to hold onto, just to keep him steady while he goes.  
  
He huddles close to Darren, still sharing the heat from the fire, and Darren plays his guitar, and if it’s something Chris knows he sings along, Darren’s voice curling around his, and they’ve always sounded good together. Sometimes it’s just a melody, and sometimes it’s that one melody that makes Chris feel like his bones are trembling in his body every time he hears it.  
  
Chris wants to curl up somewhere small and dark, somewhere that he can control every inch of, somewhere he can be alone and let this feeling wash over him until he doesn’t have to feel it anymore, because it’s too much, it’s too much, he can’t handle it, can’t process it. Still hears Darren’s voice in his head, desert-dry and soft but so, so sure, sure in a way that Chris can’t be,  _I’m in love with you._  
  
Chris can’t handle it, can’t hear those words, not from Darren, not right now, because their entire friendship, he’s been fighting everything in himself, he’s been waging war with everything Darren is, everything Darren does to him, and now Darren’s sitting there, a fucking peacemaker, crossing that one line, completely  _obliterating_  it. Hopping over every boundary, every rule, taking the one thing Chris said he’d never have, would never even let himself consider, and giving it to Chris, and it’s only making everything that much more chaotic in Chris’s head.  
  
So he cuddles into Darren’s side and he lets his warmth seep into him and he listens to his voice while he sings, watches the shadows dance across Darren’s face, the hollow of his throat, the way his eyes reflect the fire, looking like they’re lit from within. The flash of his teeth, the bend of his wrist, the dance of his fingers over the strings, the way his skin gleams in the firelight, and he pushes everything else away. Nothing else matters right then, because it can’t – he can’t let it.  
  
His eyes sting.

~  
  
  
They take the bus back to Darren’s house when it gets too cold and not even their small bonfire is enough to keep them warm. They’re both quiet, and it should be awkward – Chris should feel uncomfortable, feel hyper-aware of everything Darren does, but the thing is – Chris is always hyper-aware of everything Darren does, of all the ways Darren touches Chris – finger-tips on his wrist, knuckles brushing his arm, his thigh, hand squeezing his knee, his hip.  
  
It’s not though, and Chris was done feeling surprised by the peculiarities of their friendship a long time ago – the way it never really felt like a friendship at all, felt more like they’d known each other their entire life, like they’d been there for each other through everything. Chris sometimes feels like he could look back on his life in Clovis and see Darren there, holding him while he cried because of how cruel kids could be, because he can’t remember how he  _coped_ without Darren, without his particular brand of mania, his particular way of being a complete asshole and still making you love him so absolutely.  
  
Darren stops him with a hand on his forearm before they make their way back to the sidewalk and out of the sand, and his curls are caught in the wind and his eyes are bright and dark and glittering and he has this look on his face that Chris can’t place but thinks he might be able to, with time.  
  
He says, very quietly, “Chris. Just wait a second.”  
  
He brings them close, and Chris lets him because he’s not good at using his  _brain_  around Darren, and he feels his breath stutter in his chest when Darren leans close, eyelashes fanning over his cheeks when he drops his eyes. There’s a small smile playing on his wind-chapped lips and Chris feels it again, that feeling that wells like a tsunami, fills him to breaking, and his knee-jerk reaction of pushing past it is suddenly not quite working, and he feels this nameless, formless  _want_ that moves through his body like a gale. He’s never allowed himself to feel it this long and it’s cementing his feet to the ground, his body still.  
  
Darren speaks again, soft and sweet and a little raspy, “Just wait.”  
  
And then he’s ducking in, pressing his body to Chris’s in one long line, hands on Chris’s hips, and he’s pressing dry, warm lips to Chris’s cheek, lingering there, so fucking tender Chris could cry. He feels his heart seize in his chest, hands going to Darren’s shoulders, and he doesn’t know what to do in the reality of this, doesn’t know what to do with Darren’s lips pressing to his skin like this, like Chris is so fucking dear to him, and Chris can’t  _bear_ it, doesn’t know why it makes his entire chest cavity throb like someone’s squeezing it with every breath.  
  
Darren pulls away, smiling, saying, “Okay, now we can go,” and grabbing Chris’s hand and pulling him along, like Chris isn’t wide-eyed and dizzy and  _lost._  
  
Darren presses close to Chris on the ride home, fingers tapping a rhythm against Chris’s thigh, and it’s not awkward, not even a little bit, and Chris’s body relaxes into Darren’s like nothing else, and Jesus, Chris wishes it was awkward, because he’s not an idiot. He might be in denial – but he’s not an idiot.  
  
~  
  
When they get back to Darren’s house, Chuck’s back from a last practice at the theater, opting out of getting dinner with the rest of the band, and he’s complaining about being  _fucking starved, I need food, I skipped dinner with everyone else so I could eat with you assholes._  
  
Darren orders Chris to the counter, and he and Chuck make some sort of soup, full of vegetables and chicken and rice, the three of them talking and laughing. The atmosphere is relaxed enough that Chris almost forgets about the way his pulse jumps a little every time Darren smiles at him out of nowhere, eyes catching Chris’s and  _holding_ and Chris can never look away.  
  
The soup, despite Chris’s teasing skepticism, is actually unreasonably delicious. Chris resolutely ignores the smug grin Darren throws him.  
  
“Fuck you, this is soup from heaven. It’s fucking  _ambrosial.”_  
  
Chris snorts, sending him an unimpressed look, sniping back a mild, “Smug bastard.”  
  
Darren looks at him like he’s mortally offended, a comically dramatic outraged expression sweeping across his face, darting forward and poking Chris’s ribs in retaliation before Chris can think to defend himself. Chris laughs, jumping away and kicking out with his foot, hitting Darren’s shin. Chuck’s just watching them, a bottle of wine that he seems to have produced out of nowhere in one hand, raising his other to give Chris a high-five, laughing gleefully at Darren.

  
Darren’s hopping around on one foot, clutching his shin and saying, loud and through his teeth,  
  
“Motherfucking  _ow_  that hurt, Jesus, Chris,  _unnecessary_.”  
  
“It’s not my fault you got in the way of my foot,” Chris replies, all wide-eyed innocence.  
  
Darren scoffs, opening his mouth to reply, eyes bright with amusement, when Chuck interrupts with an airy, “That’s enough children, time for dinner,” yelping loudly when Chris smacks his arm and Darren his head.  
  
They end up crowding around the stove, picking out the chicken and vegetables with their fingers until they finally cave and grab spoons, eating it directly from the pot. They pass the bottle of wine between them, and Chris can’t help but watch every time Darren takes the bottle from him and takes a drink, lips staining red, mouth where Chris’s mouth has been, and he feels childish, like a schoolgirl with a crush, but still he watches every time.  
  
Chuck is saying, through his laughter, “No, but you don’t understand. He was really adamant that he wanted a deer and a bird and a rabbit – he made a list of every animal in that movie and he wanted one of each.”  
  
Chris has one hand over his mouth, laughing helplessly, clutching the wine bottle to his chest.

Darren’s leaning against the counter, spoon in hand, head ducked down and grinning, “I had just watched Snow White, okay? I was a very impressionable kid.”  
  
“He was so passionate about it. He showed mom a picture of Audrey Hepburn and her deer as proof that it was an acceptable pet to have. He researched it and everything.”  
  
Chris is lifting the bottle to his mouth and taking a drink, just barely managing to swallow it down before more laughter escapes. The house is warm and relaxed and it feels lived in, and Chris thinks that it feels like the kind of place where memories are made and always remembered.

  
He’s eating delicious food and he’s a little bit tipsy and Darren’s close and warm, like the house is warm, like he’s the type of person you build memories with too. He can’t remember feeling this loose in  _months._  
  
He glances up and Darren’s watching him, eyes half-lidded and dark, smile playing across his face slow and sweet and a little sharp, like he knows that when he looks at Chris like that it makes him feel a little light-headed, blood rushing too quick, like he’s waiting for something when he isn’t.  
  
( _He_   _isn’t._ )  
  
Chris moves forward before he can think of the many, many reason why he shouldn’t, lets his shoulder lean against Darren’s while he dips his spoon into the pot again, feeling heat race up his spine when Darren shifts, pressing his hip to Chris’s.  
  
Darren says, voice low and soft and throaty, right into Chris’s ear, “I’m so fucking glad you’re here with me, Chris.”  
  
Darren’s moving away before Chris can reply, talking to Chuck about the Freelance Whales show tomorrow, and Chris – Chris is losing this battle against himself, Chris is losing his resolve. Darren’s an earthquake, he’s a freight train; he shakes Chris from the ground up with his very presence. He’s upsetting everything Chris thought he knew and he’s turning Chris’s thoughts up-side down and opening him up and there’s nothing Chris can do about it.  
  
He wonders idly, while Darren and Chuck gesture with their hands as they speak, Darren’s eyes bright and happy, when he’ll stop trying to convince himself that this is all just because Darren sort of fell apart and he’s looking for something to put him back together.  
  
He hands Darren the bottle when Darren steps closer to him, watching him take a drink and not pretending that he’s doing anything else, returning the grin Darren’s got playing at his lips while he watches Chris right back.  
  
~  
  
They put on a movie – Kill Bill – and Chuck and Darren whistle along with Elle perfectly in-tune, and Chris laughs and says  _I collect your fucking head_ with O-Ren Ishii.  
  
Chris gets up to make the last bag of popcorn, and when he comes back Darren’s still on the couch but Chuck’s on the floor, clutching his stomach and laughing and cursing at Darren for  _literally kicking me off the couch, you dick._  
  
Darren’s sprawled out completely across the sofa, head tipped back and laughing, wearing a pull-over and sweats so well-worn Chris feels like they’re one loose thread away from unraveling. Chris watches him from the doorway in the kitchen, and he’s thinking, helplessly, too close to desperate, too close to aching, that he wants to press against Darren from ankle to chest, feel Darren’s heart beat against his own, his pulse against his lips, trace him from head to toe and know every line of muscle, every tendon, every curve of bone, every inch of skin.

He doesn’t know what to do with this, he doesn’t know what to do with this because he’s pretty sure he can have it, he’s pretty sure Darren would let him. But this want feels so big, so heavy, so  _permanent,_ like it’ll never leave his body, will always be this ache in his bones that will never fade away.  
  
He doesn’t know how to respond to this, to wanting so much, to wanting  _everything, fuck,_  and knowing he can have it, that Darren would give him everything he asks, knowing that he’d give Darren anything, anything,  _God, anything_  in return, and he doesn’t know how to offer that to Darren, wholly and completely and without restraint.  
  
He wants to cover it, like it’s something he needs to protect, as if it’ll break him right open if he shows it to anyone.

He thinks about it – about slipping his hands beneath Darren’s sweater, sliding his hands over the lines of Darren’s torso, tracing the sharp edge of his hips, up his spine, watching the curve of him while he arches into it, the tightening and loosening of his body, the way his breath would hitch in his chest. Chris thinks maybe Darren’s eyelashes would flutter, eyes a splash of ink on his pale skin, wide and dark and glittering, and God, the way Darren would  _look_ at him.  
  
But Chris thinks, more than anything, how he would be completely and utterly incapable of ever stopping, of ever looking at Darren and not wanting him with every inch of himself, of wanting him cracked open and messy and all his _, all his_ , emotions spilling like paint across Darren’s face, so readable, so open, and oh, Chris would never, ever be able to stop.  
  
It’s the most terrifying thing in the world. It’s the most terrified Chris has ever been in his life, and Jesus Christ, no wonder he ignored all of this. It was self preservation, it was his instincts screaming at him how completely  _horrifyingly lost_  he is in the face of this.  
  
He’s never felt this in his life and he’s so entirely unprepared for it and the only thing he can think is  _please, God, never leave me, never leave me, never leave me alone with this feeling, it would tear me to pieces._  
  
He pulls his eyes away, ignoring the way Chuck’s glancing at him every now and then like he’s waiting for something, like he’s waiting for Chris to do something, because Chris still doesn’t know what to do or how to do it.  
  
Chris settles directly on Darren’s legs, laughing, and trying not to look as distracted and lost as he feels, and ignores the spread of warmth down his spine, tightening the pit of his stomach, when Darren pulls his legs out from beneath him and settles them on Chris’s lap without complaint.  
  
~  
  
It’s dark and quiet, the TV and lights off, and Chris and Darren are still downstairs, Chuck already in his room on the second floor, gone up after the movie was over. Chris has his back to the couch, Darren settled in next to him. They’re passing a second bottle of wine back and forth, talking quietly, Darren strumming his guitar in between drinks, finger-picking that same melody he’s been playing whenever he has his guitar in his hands, eyes half-lidded and soft while he watches Chris.  
  
“What is that?”  
  
Darren plays it again, watching Chris, and Chris grins, slow and gradual, nodding.  
  
“Dunno’. Nothing yet.” A pause and then, “I play it when I think of you.” 

  
Chris’s breath catches in his throat, and he lifts his head from where it’s been leaning against the couch, looking fully at Darren. Darren shrugs at him, grinning a little, and Chris can’t quite figure out what the correct response is here.

“You – really?”

Darren just watches him, eyes steady.

“Darren.” It’s caught in his throat, though – it’s stuck there, and he’s not even sure what it is, exactly, just knows that it hurts a little, tightens his throat and his stomach, makes his hands clench.

He doesn’t realize he’s shifted closer to Darren until Darren’s moving his guitar aside, settling it next to him and watching Chris, body turned towards him. Chris doesn’t know what he’s doing, why he’s moving, but he knows that he wants to be closer to Darren, knows that’s not exactly a new desire of his.

“Darren. Darren, I don’t – “ But Darren’s leaning closer, eyes glittering and he’s whispering,  _just let me, let me, please_ , and his hands are coming up, one cupping Chris’s jaw and the other sliding around his neck, fingers tugging on Chris’s hair, pulling him forward.

Chris’s mouth parts, letting Darren draw him closer, and then Darren’s mouth is on his, kissing him slow and soft and achingly, achingly gentle. Chris lets out a quiet, strangled breath, feels heat wrap around his spine, body melting just a little, and Darren’s making this faint, hungry noise in the back of his throat, hands becoming firmer and pressing his body closer, tongue slipping into Chris’s mouth. He tastes sweet and bitter, like wine, and his mouth is soft and warm and wet and he kisses like it’s the only thing he’s ever thought about.

And Chris – Chris can only react to it, can only groan softly and pull Darren closer and kiss him deep and wanting because he  _wants._  He wants the way Darren’s kissing harder and hungrier but still so fucking sweet that it makes Chris’s chest ache. Chris’s hands are clutching Darren’s hoodie, soft and a little damp in his fists but he really honestly cannot let go, can only clench his hands and pull Darren forward.

Darren hums quietly, broken and raspy in the back of his throat, pulls away from Chris slowly, grin growing wide and bright across his face and his eyes impossibly dark and fucking  _luminescent_  and he’s still close enough that Chris can feel Darren’s breath ghosting across his lips. Darren darts forward again, kisses Chris quick and fleeting on the lips and then trails his mouth over and presses it to his cheek. Chris is laughing, low and helpless and affectionate and Darren’s pressing his smile into Chris’s cheek and saying “I’ll convince you – you’ll see, Chris. You just gotta’ let me.”

Chris inhales, closes his eyes, nods, saying, “Yeah, okay. Okay,” and thinking  _he’s a freight train, he’s an earthquake, he’s inevitable_ ,  _how do I run from him?_   

~

  
Chris is blinking awake, unsure of the time but going by how light it is outside it’s not exactly early-morning, head throbbing a little and mouth dry and sticky. He doesn’t remember falling asleep – he’s pressed up against Darren on the couch, head tucked beneath his chin, nose pressed to his neck. It’s not comfortable – his entire body is aching and he’s cold wherever Darren’s not pressed up against him because they don’t have a blanket and he somehow managed to twist his shirt enough that it’s too tight across his torso.

He wishes, fervently and with truly pathetic desperation, that he was lying when he acknowledges that he hasn’t woken up so well-rested in months.  
  
He’s just seriously considering letting himself fall back asleep because good sleep is distressingly difficult for him to come by, eyes dropping closed slowly, when he hears Chuck’s voice startlingly close to him.  
  
“Well, this is a little awkward.”  
  
Chris yelps, body twisting and jerking just enough to have him falling off the couch with a curse. He’s blinking up at Chuck who’s sitting cross-legged on the coffee-table they’d pushed to the side the night before, now back in its original place in front of the couch.  
  
“I – didn’t. Realize you were in here.”  
  
“Well! I am. So. How ya’ doing there, Chris? You looked comfortable.” Chuck’s voice is far too cheerful and it’s making Chris a little nauseous.  
  
To be completely fair, the two bottles of wine might be contributing to that as well.  
  
There’s a rustle coming from the couch and then Darren’s popping up his head just enough for Chris to see the bird’s nest that’s become his hair.  
  
“Go away Chuck. Remember what we just watched – I will cut your head in half.”  
  
Chris makes a quiet sound that might have been a laugh had his throat not felt like he was swallowing nails, and as it is just sounds like he’s choking on said nails.  
  
“I am actually impressed that despite the fact that you’re half asleep, you still managed that threat coherently. Also, that requires you to move, little brother. I don’t think you’re up to actual physical motion right now.”  
  
“Fuck you, I will force myself if I have to, just  _go away._ ”  
  
Chris nods emphatically from his place on the floor.  
  
“I’ll just leave you two, then. Continue making me uncomfortable, that’s fine, totally fine.”  
  
“Chuck you’ve seen the after-math of Starkid parties. You are not uncomfortable right now,  
you’re just a dick.”  
  
Chuck just grins at them, disgustingly wide and chipper, whistling as he saunters out.

Chris blinks, says, voice a complete wreck, “Unbelievable. That particular brand of asshole is apparently not contained to just one Criss brother.”  
  
There’s a short silence and then, “ _Hey_ _!_ ”  
  
Chris grins, eyes slipping closed until he feels Darren’s hand on his shoulder, tugging him insistently.  
  
“Come back – s’cold.”  
  
Chris looks up at Darren, eyes closed and smiling a little, pale and puffy-eyed. Chris hums and doesn’t think and climbs back onto the couch with his eyes closing again before he’s even fully on the couch, presses close to Darren because he’s still cold and Darren’s sleep-warm skin is actually the best thing, right then.  
  
Chuck wakes them up again later, less teasing and more the easy-going Chuck that Chris is familiar with. It’s noon and he’s on his way out – him and the band apparently like to bond before gigs, and he promises that he’ll see them tonight.  
  
Chris and Darren do nothing for a few hours – make waffles at 2 pm and eat as if they haven’t in days. Chris lets Darren drag him outside for a walk after they’re done and they somehow end up in the car, and then in the city, walking up-hill streets, Darren as animated as ever.  
  
Chris keeps thinking that things should be different – he should feel different - pressured and uneasy and wary. But Darren looks at him with patient eyes and an open smile and he still makes Chris laugh hard enough that it scrunches his entire face up and they still discuss ridiculous things. Darren still touches too much, ignores the concept of personal space, and it’s not like Chris can even pretend that it’s something new – Darren’s always done that, it’s just now Chris’s brain is trying to remind him that it’s  _significant_. If Chris ignores the fact that there’s a part of himself that’s still shaking from head-to-toe, still out of control and sharp and alive, then it’s almost like nothing’s changed.  
  
(Almost, almost, almost. Not quite.)  
  
~  
  
They stay in the city until it’s time for the concert and then Darren drives them to the theater that Chuck is playing in. Chris is completely blown away by the place – it’s massive and beautiful and  _bright,_ neon red and yellow lights displaying  _Castro_  vertically above the entrance, impossible to miss in the soft-focus dusk of the hour. Darren’s staring up at the throwback theater display that says Freelance Whales, lit up right below the Castro sign with its own equally bright but more elaborate lights, looking so proud he could burst.  
  
“It’s just – he’s my  _brother,_ you know? That’s my brother up there and I just – I’m so happy for him, fuck. He deserves this, every time, all the time. Deserves every fan, every gig.”  
  
Chris nods, feels something swell in his chest, feels impossibly, exhaustively grateful that the feeling he gets when he sees Darren or Lea or Amber or any one of his friends succeeding in something is close to what Darren’s saying. It’s not something he’d have known before.  
  
When they get inside, it’s even more gorgeous than Chris thought it’d be. It’s extensively intricate and embellished and gilded in that way that only truly vintage buildings can pull off without looking gaudy, the atmosphere heightened by the dim lighting, leaving shadows that seem to linger in every corner.  
  
There are already people in their seats and the empty ones are steadily filling. Darren’s in the seat next to him, dead-center and close to the stage. His eyes are bright and wild and he bounces on his toes and cheers for the opening bands – Darren just loves music and Chris knows that regardless of who he’s seeing, if the music’s good he’s going to be just as enthusiastic as he is now.  
  
By the time his brother comes out with the band, he’s grinning so wide it’s making his eyes look like nothing but color, skin gleaming with a light sheen of sweat from both the body-heated venue and his constant movement. He’s bouncing and bobbing his head and singing along to the songs just as loudly as any fan. He looks so fucking  _young_ Chris can barely stand to look at him – young and free and  _happy_ and Chris feels something heavy and warm and constant curl up in his stomach.

  
 _it’s moving in your bloodstream_  
 _where the cross beats aren’t so slow_  
  
~  
  
They get in late but Chuck gets in later, and by the time he’s coming through the front door, a little too loud, not used to having people asleep in the house when they’re here, it’s already 3 am. Chris is sleeping fitfully on the couch, Darren on the floor, back leaning against it.  
  
He glances up when he passes by on the way to the stairs, catches the way Chuck is grinning like a maniac.  
  
Darren grins back, says, quietly, “You guys were fucking  _brilliant,_ man. It was awesome.”  
  
Chuck laughs, eyes bright. “Thanks for being there, dude. It was good knowing you were in the audience.”  
  
Darren’s already opening his mouth to reply when Chuck cants his head to the side, eyeing Darren and then Chris in turn.  
  
“I’ve been wanting to ask – Chris?”  
  
Darren breathes out a little forcefully, like the air is being pushed from his chest.  
  
He’s never been very subtle when it comes to these things.  
  
“Yeah,” he murmurs, nearly silent, on a breath.  
  
Chuck smiles, walks towards Darren, squeezes Darren’s shoulder.  
  
“I had a feeling. Have you told him?”  
  
Darren laughs a little, painfully, eyes closing.  
  
“Don’t worry. He’ll come around – I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”  
  
Darren opens his eyes, catching his brother’s gaze, raising an eyebrow at him.

Chuck just gives him an easy shrug, grinning.  
  
“I’ve got eyes, man. Give me some credit.”  
  
Darren laughs, says, “We’ll see how it goes,” even though there’s this feeling in his chest like someone’s put his heart on a crane.  
  
After Chuck goes upstairs Darren prods Chris awake and leads him to his room, laughing softly at the way Chris blindly follows him.

He watches Chris curl up in his bed, in his sheets, and he’s never been so utterly devastated by a single person in his life _._  He thinks that maybe that’s what love is, being over-taken and overwhelmed and completely taken apart by someone and being so, so willing all the while.

  
He’s lying next to Chris, eyes closed and listening to the sound of Chris sleeping next to him, the shift of his body and the breath of his lungs, and he’s thinking,  _you could actually break me to pieces, but fuck, please don’t, please don’t, I don’t think I could handle it._

There’s this slow sort of certainty settling into him, into his bones, calm and quiet and steadfast, that Chris won’t and it’s like taking a breath.  
  
He wonders, as he’s dropping into sleep, how he’s ever going to come back to this house without remembering Chris in every room – he leaves an impression wherever he goes.

~  
  
They leave in the morning, hug Chuck before they go and then they drive. It’s a longer drive than LA to San Francisco, but if they stop less it’ll still only take them (a very long) 2 days to get there. Where before Darren had been quiet and contemplative unless he had his ukulele in his hands, like he was trying to figure something out within himself, on this drive he talks. He talks aimlessly, meandering from topic to topic, sometimes watching Chris and sometimes staring at nothing, eyes far away or staring at Chris like he sees more than just Chris in front of him.  
  
There’s something  _settled_ about Darren now, like he’s tucked away a loose piece of himself and now he fits better in his own skin. It’s curious, considering Chris feels like he’s flying apart at the seams, like he’s slowly unraveling because what he wants and what he feels are fighting with what he  _knows,_ or, at least, what he thinks he should know because Darren looks at him, and there’s this look in his eyes, soft and fond and patient, like he’s just waiting for Chris.  
  
It makes Chris feel like his heart has his throat in a death-grip, a punch to the stomach, a kick in the neck – he’s all broken parts because this slow-dawning realization is beating him to a pulp. He wonders why it hurts so much – why it feels so devastating.

He’s heavy with it, like it’s so much  _feeling_ at once that it’s weighing him down – like he’s choking with it. Worse, maybe, is what’s buzzing beneath the  _panic,_  this slow-fizzing urgency; a sparkling, sharp feeling of want that feels like it will never be satisfied, and he loves it as much as he hates it, and what does he do with  _any_ this?  
  
Darren watches like he  _knows_ and Chris wonders how and wonders why and wonders  _why now_  and then knows, anyway, because there’s this door that he pretended didn’t exist and suddenly Darren pushed him face-first into it and opened it all at once.  
  
Chris ties himself into knots trying to figure himself out and throughout it all is Darren’s voice, his laugh, his smile.

Laughing as he says, “Maybe I’ll write a song for you, and that’ll convince you.”  
  
Chris laughs too even though it shouldn’t be funny but it is because it’s Darren, and he doesn’t look hurt, still has that patient look, eyes bright and spilling everything out for Chris and Chris wants to soak it all up.  
  
~  
  
Chris isn’t sure how to handle Darren anymore.  
  
Darren leans forward and touches Chris sometimes, like he can’t help it, fingertips skimming across Chris’s arms, playing across his shoulder, the back of his neck. It sends shivers wracking through Chris’s body every time, no matter how many times he does it, like Chris’s body just can’t acclimate to Darren’s touch, can’t just get used to it and treat it like it’s nothing. No – his entire body reacts to it and it makes him go tight all over and then impossibly loose, like Darren’s touch unwinds him at the very core and it shakes Chris to his knees every time.

Darren gets this look on his face when it happens, like he’s so  _grateful_ , and it makes Chris want to press his fingers into the furrow of Darren’s brow, soothe away the soft, hungry gratitude there, because he looks like he  _hurts_  with it.  
  
Whenever they stop, for whatever reason, Darren sits as close as possible as often as possible, which is nothing new. What is new, what is something Chris has never had to deal with before, is how sometimes Darren tucks his nose into Chris’s neck, eyelashes brushing Chris’s jaw, presses his smile into Chris’s skin. Sometimes it feels more like a kiss than anything, because Darren lingers there, so fucking  _tender,_ lips soft and warm, breath puffing out against Chris’s skin.  
  
It scratches Chris’s throat raw, bone-dry, leaves him feeling shaken every time, heart dropping and lifting and trembling.  
  
It’s all he can do, the soft, high, raspy  _Darren_ that escapes on a breath, because he doesn’t know quite how to think with Darren right there, doing that, stringing his body taut and then pliant so fast he’s dizzy with it.  
  
Darren pulls away, smiling, sweet and slow and  _knowing,_ humming in the back of his throat, a formless  _I know, I know,_ sort of sound, even though Chris isn’t sure quite exactly what he meant himself. But Darren smiles like he does and Chris wants to  _punch him_ and then also doesn’t, not at all, and he watches Darren, and Darren lets him, watches Chris right back.    
  
~

Darren’s driving because he refuses to give Chris the keys, and he’s singing along to every song that comes on the radio, whether he knows it or not. Chris knows that because when he  _doesn’t_ know the song, he sings gibberish instead and it’s making Chris laugh to the point where he’s doubled-over in his seat, clutching his stomach. Darren only stops long enough to watch Chris while he completely  _loses it_ , looking delighted because he’s an asshole and Chris  _hates him_.

Chris is taking in these big, hitching breaths when Darren finally stops for more than a few seconds, but he’s still watching Chris, grinning with all his teeth. Chris can  _feel_ how red his face is but can’t seem to fight his own smile off his face anyway.

“I hate you so much.”

Darren just sends him a shark’s grin and before Chris can stop him, he’s switching stations and mumble-singing in a  _ridiculous_  falsetto that sets Chris off all over again.

“Darren  _shut up,_ oh my God. I can’t believe I agreed to this, what was I  _thinking?”_ Chris’s words are a little broken, start-stops punctuated by his gasping laughter.  
  
Darren sings, “Because you fucking love it,” to the tune of the song, glancing at Chris from the side of his eye and laughing when Chris flips him off in response.  
  
Chris is trying to say, “No, no, I hate it, I  _hate it_ ,” convincingly, but the laughter is bubbling up out of him before he can contain it. Darren just grins at him, open and easy, because that’s the Darren that Chris has always gotten – cracked open and spilling emotions like a dropped glass jar, and Chris has always been silently astounded by it, and so grateful that it makes him want to close his eyes and hide.  
  
Instead of replying, Darren shouts, loud and enthusiastic and just the slightest bit teasing, “Sing with me, Chris!”  
  
Chris doesn’t bother resisting, ignores Darren’s look of triumph and opens his mouth, singing, “Somethin’ somethin’ nah-nah-nah,” at the top of his lungs to a truly terrible song neither of them know the lyrics to.

~

They pull into a diner when Darren can’t put off his hunger any longer, a small, hole-in-the-wall place that has that vintage, 50’s drive-in feel that actually seems genuine, like the owners are stuck in that era.

They are already sitting down with their orders in front of them and Chris is trying not to  _kick_  Darren for being difficult.

“Don’t be unnecessarily unhelpful. Just tell me how long you’re planning on being in New York,” Chris is insisting, brow furrowed. 

“I never know what I’m doing these days.”

“You do know – you just don’t want to tell me.”

“Filthy lies.”

Darren’s all bright eyes and impish grin, theatrically mischievous in a way Chris hasn’t seen in awhile and it makes Chris roll his eyes, nudging him with the toe of his shoes.

“You’re such a monster _.”_

“The very worst,” he agrees, nodding emphatically and stuffing a french fry into his mouth.

Chris glares without heat, a twist of exasperation on his lips.

“Just tell me how long we’re going to be in New York, that’s all I want to know.”

Something in Darren’s face softens, his shoulders loosening and Chris just watches, struggling with the sudden shift of the moment.

Chris takes a deep breath, raises an eyebrow. Darren just looks steadily back, a tilt to his lips like the beginnings of a not-quite-smile, in such contrast to the exaggerated playfulness of the minute before.

“You’re being unreasonable,” Chris finally concludes, a wry grin tugging at his lips, a little lost but trying to lead them to the casual ease they usually settle into.

Darren smiles, eyes dropping before he’s looking up again, so steady, patient, and Chris wonders where Darren gets his surety from sometimes, his doubtlessness.

“Everybody is unreasonable about something, man.”

It’s like a punch to the stomach, knocks the breath from his lungs, and it’s not the words, it’s the boy who’s saying them. It’s Darren, who’s sort of manic and enthusiastic and in a way it disguises the sharp, perceptive intelligence underlying everything Darren says and does. When it’s revealed, in innocuous simple statements like that, it’s like the sun rising, it’s a jolt to the body; being kicked awake just as you’re falling asleep.

Chris lets himself forget, sometimes, who Darren is as a whole – lets himself work Darren into this box, this caricature that’s so much easier to handle than the real thing, so much neater, so much less messy than the whole.

Darren always manages to kick open the box, break the mold, spilling over and everywhere and  _messy_  and it’s  _beautiful_ and it makes Chris want to look away and never take Darren in all at once ever again.

Darren picks up another fry and dips it into his milkshake, popping it into his mouth with a grin. There’s grease on the tips of his fingers and milkshake at the corner of his mouth and Chris wonders how long they’ve been in this diner. He wonders why everything feels so slow right now, slow motion, stop motion,  _freeze frame, let’s spend more time in this exact moment_.

“You eat like you’re still a kid – you do realize that, right?”

Darren’s smile spreads slowly and he pops his tongue out to lick at the corner of his mouth and slips his tongue over his fingers all at once. Then he’s dipping one finger into his shake and smearing it over Chris’s lips, face completely straight for a single second before a grin is breaking over his face and spreading like fire, bright and too-close, and Chris can only blink at him for a second. His lips are cold and sweet when he licks them, and Darren’s laughing now, loud and in bursts, like he can’t contain it even though he’s trying.

“You’ve got a little – “ Darren’s saying, gesturing to Chris’s face, giggles breaking through. Chris fights his smile, flipping Darren off casually, which just sets Darren off all over again.

Chris watches for a moment, waiting for Darren to catch his eye before he dips two of his fingers into Darren’s shake and calmly, deliberately lifts his hand and draws a line across Darren’s forehead.

Darren’s eyes are saucer-wide and glimmering, blinking slowly, and Chris hold his gaze, leans forward a little bit, whispers, very quietly, fervently, “ _Simba.”_

Darren makes a sound like he’s choking and then they’re both laughing so hard they can’t breathe. Darren’s face down on the table, hands over his eyes, shoulders shaking, and Chris is doubled over and his stomach is cramping up and he’s pretty sure they are about to get kicked out of a road-side diner at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, and the only thing Chris can think about is laying in bed with his laptop at 5 am and him and Darren reading Texts From Last Night entries over the phone to each other. Both of them completely losing it when they got to the  _Simba_ text and being unable to talk for 5 minutes because the only thing that came out of his mouth when he tried to say something intelligible was more laughter.

“Fuck, fuck, oh God, I can’t breathe,” Darren’s gasping, head finally lifted off the table, entire face scrunched up and cheeks bright red.

“Why is that still funny, oh my God, it’s not even, why am I laughing?”

“Shut up, shut up, fuck, you’re making it  _worse,”_ Darren’s moaning, clutching his stomach, breathless, uncontrollable laughter still escaping. “Clearly I am not the only one who’s a kid here, Colfer.”

“Shut up, you are a terrible influence.”

Darren grins again and it reaches his eyes, and he has this way of smiling that makes it seem like every part of him is engaged in this smile, just for you, and it’s ridiculous and it never fails to make Chris smile back. 

Darren pushes his fries and his shake into the middle of the table and Chris reaches for a fry, eyeing the shake a little fearfully.

“Oh, don’t be such a baby, it’s delicious, I swear.”

“It’s boysenberry, Darren. Boysenberry shouldn’t be a milkshake flavor. And if it is, no one should order it. Yet here we are.”

Darren snorts, dipping another fry in and popping it into his mouth, smacking his lips and humming obnoxiously.

“You  _would_ order this, wouldn’t you? And enjoy it. Just to spite me.”

Darren’s just looking at him, still grinning infuriatingly, and Chris smiles because he can’t help it, finally just dipping the fry into the damn shake. He kicks Darren in the shin when Darren does a double-fist pump and crows like an asshole, like he’s won some sort of battle of wills.

The shake is actually unbelievably delicious and Chris points at Darren sternly, mumbling while he dips another fry into it, “Just because this is actually really, really delicious, doesn’t mean you’ve won something. You’ve won nothing. There are no winners today.”

“Yes, darling.”

Chris pulls the shake toward himself and drinks it from the straw like a normal person, attempting and mostly failing at keeping inappropriate noises from escaping his mouth because it’s  _that good._

“Okay. You…  _may_  have won something today.”

“Yes, darling.”

“Asshole.”

“Yes, darl – oh,  _fuck_ , seriously, enough with the kicking!”

Chris steals another fry and Darren steals the shake back and the sinking sun is shining through the window in pale stripes, catching Darren’s hands, his smile, and Chris thinks,  _freeze frame, let’s spend more time in this exact moment._

  
~  
  
They stop after 10 hours of driving – pull into a beautiful, privately owned Inn and share a room, same as last time.  
  
Darren checks them in this time and Chris lets him take his shower first. It feels eerily like the hotel they’d stayed in on their way to San Francisco, only it’s different because Darren hardly takes his eyes off Chris. It makes Chris want to stand still so Darren can look without having to follow him with his eyes and Chris doesn’t understand  _that_  urge at all.

Darren’s stepping out of the bathroom with those same fucking sweats that look like they’re one slight tug from slipping down his hips, shirtless, towel-drying his hair. He looks tired – eyes wide and soft and half-lidded, peeking out from behind the towel, and there’s something so viscerally  _human_ about it that Chris just wants to look at him like this  _always_.  
  
Chris pulls his gaze away, smiling a little when he can feel Darren’s eyes still on him. He grabs his things and slips into the bathroom, stifling a yawn and pushing Darren playfully as he passes when Darren grins at him, cooing teasingly like Chris is the cutest thing he’s ever seen. Darren’s laughter follows him into the bathroom and Chris doesn’t bother stifling the knee-jerk grin it brings to his face.  
  
When he makes his way out of the bathroom, Darren’s kneeling by his bag, putting his things back so they don’t forget it in the morning, and Chris notices that Darren hasn’t bothered turning down his bed. It makes something warm and slow twist in Chris’s stomach that Darren’s not even keeping up the pretence of planning on sleeping on his own _._  
  
As soon as Chris is lying down Darren’s moving toward him, crawling over him, straddling Chris’s waist and leaning his weight onto his fore-arms, resting on either side of Chris’s head, eyes dark but not hooded – easy to read, easy for Chris to read. The breath is catching and hitching in Chris’s throat, hard-knotted and strangling. This wasn’t what he’d been expecting and he’s trying to  _process_ but failing  _miserably_.  
  
“What do you feel?”  
  
Darren’s voice is so  _quiet,_ eyes intent, a trace of a smile on his lips as he holds Chris’s gaze.

Chris can’t  _speak,_ and he realizes abstractly that his hands have locked onto Darren’s hips.  
  
“Chris,  _what do you feel_?”  
  
Darren’s voice has dropped a little lower, a little rougher, sandpapered and soft but insistent, his body dropping closer.  
  
“I – ” Chris still can’t think, can’t figure out what he’s feeling other than this heavy, despairing sort of  _want._  
  
Darren moves closer, and for a moment, for this single, quiet, devastating moment, Chris thinks Darren is going to kiss him – he can only remember that last night in San Francisco, loose with wine and so  _intimate,_ sitting there in the dark, the press of Darren’s lips against his, the way he  _reacted_ to it, helpless and out of his control and how he is so, so terrified of that.

He doesn’t – dips to the side, presses his lips to Chris’s cheek, and Chris’s eyes drop closed without his permission, hands tightening on Darren’s hips that he has apparently  _still not let go of._ Darren’s humming quietly against his cheek, a little soothingly, like he knows Chris is struggling through everything he’s feeling like he’s climbing a mountain hand-over-hand.

  
“Stay.”  
  
Chris’s voice is a little gravelly, higher than he likes and rougher than he thought his voice could go, and it surprises him; the word escaping his mouth at all surprises him.  
  
Darren hums again, softly, low in his throat, pulling back and grinning at Chris, and it’s sort of blinding because Chris has this feeling – like he’s been in a dark room and suddenly he’s being thrust into sunlight. It’s disconcerting because there’s a Goddamn  _lamp_  on, but Chris can’t stop blinking like his eyes are adjusting to new light.  
  
“I was hoping,” Darren murmurs quietly, so honest and so gentle it makes something in Chris clench, tight and sharp and painful.  
  
Darren drops beside Chris, rolling a little and tucking himself up against Chris’s side in one fluid motion and Chris feels dizzy.  
  
He makes a conscious effort to slow his breathing, can feel Darren’s eyes on him and tries twice as hard.  
  
“So is that what you feel? That you want me to stay?” Darren’s still smiling, softly, faintly.

 _No, I want you to leave, I want you to leave before it gets in my head that you might not, I want to run until I never have to feel your body against mine again because it’s better to not have something at all than to lose it once you’ve had it, but stay, stay, stay._  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Darren presses closer, lips near Chris’s ear, says quietly, “Good.”  
  
They don’t sleep – Darren’s eyes are closed but his fingers are tracing patterns against Chris’s ribs. Chris stares up at the ceiling, and then the clock, the wall, the blanket; eventually he’s staring at Darren, too close, too much. The sweep of his eyelashes, the curve of his mouth, the feel of him, strong and compact and solid; his hands wander from Darren’s shoulder to his back, to his hip, sweeping down his side, mindless, and he’s too tired to stop them.  
  
Chris wakes up at 4 am with them rolled over, Chris’s head tucked into Darren’s neck, Darren’s arms around him. Chris can’t remember when he fell asleep, only that the last thing he remembers is the way Darren’s eyelashes brushed against his jaw when he blinked.  
  
He doesn’t want to move and he forgets, for a moment, to think about what that means. Just a moment – he’s a thief and he takes it for himself and he’ll never give it back, hides it away like he’ll go back to it later, remember this moment, the way it felt, break himself over it.

He moves – pulls away slowly and carefully even though once Darren really gets to sleep he won’t wake up unless you prod him for 15 minutes straight. He reaches for his laptop and pulls it open, pulling up the script he’s supposed to be working on.

  
He can’t quite stop his gaze from wandering to Darren every few minutes anyway.  
  
~

Chris feels Darren stirring nearly an hour later from where he’s curled up next to him, arms tucked beneath his head and body curved toward Chris like he’s seeking the warmth of him. Darren doesn’t move but Chris knows he’s awake, lets them sit in silence while Chris types and Darren watches, a small smile curling his lips.

He feels a helpless sort of affection rush through him, lifts his hand and cards his fingers through the mass of curls on Darren’s head.

“Go back to sleep.”

Darren’s voice is low and raspy, a little petulant when he says, “ _You_  go back to sleep.”

Chris can’t really help the way his entire face breaks on a grin, feels Darren curl himself a little closer, just a hairsbreadth away from pressing against him. He wonders how he ever survived  _life_ without this ridiculous man.

“You need it more than I do. Don’t be childish.”

Darren grumbles quietly, more for show than anything, keeping the smile on Chris’s face as he tugs gently at Darren’s hair. Darren presses forward fully, forehead resting against Chris’s upper-thigh, his breath evening out into sleep again almost immediately.

Chris keeps his fingers in Darren’s hair until he’s sure he’s not going to wake up again, affection rolling over him like a wave – receding and then hitting twice as hard, heavy and rolling and battering him to aching.

~  
  
It’s 2 am and they’re in New York after driving a truly dangerous amount of hours to get there instead of stopping for another night.   
  
It’s 2 am and they’re in New York and Chris isn’t sure whether his judgment can be trusted with anything more life-changing than what he wants to eat for breakfast.  
  
But he’s thinking too much and too seriously - he's thinking,  
  
 _You're in a car with a beautiful boy and he won't tell you that he loves you,_

But that's not quite right, is it?  
  
Chris hears  _love_  and he closes his ears because for so long he looked and what he saw was something he couldn't have - he looked and he thought  _that is not for me, those are things I can’t think about._  
  
So he's driving in a car with a beautiful boy, with Darren, in a beautiful city with bright lights that shine like their very own galaxy. Darren’s at the wheel, wearing rainbow-striped socks and no shoes, in jeans and a vintage A Christmas Story t-shirt that says “I shot my eye out!” in huge red letters. It stretches tight across his shoulders and Chris can see strips of skin at his hips and back when he lifts his arms to stretch.  
  
This boy, this ridiculous boy, told him he loves him, and Chris couldn't quite accept the feeling, couldn't quite accept the hard-resonant truth of it. The way Darren’s bright eyes and slow smiles, the gentleness of him, so fucking sweet it makes Chris ache, felt like they were just expounding on that truth like an underline; an all-italics, bold-font significance in everything he does.  
  
Now, right in this moment, Chris feels his heart beat too-quick, rabbit-quick, mouse-quick, hummingbird-quick. This nameless thing welling up in him, filling him and filling him like he's a panic room that won't let anything in but won't let anything out, either.    
  
He feels everything settling in him, heavy and urgent, urgent, urgent, - here, now, what is he  _doing_  - and the way it comes out is this.  
  
The way he opens the panic room is this.

He takes a deep breath and he touches his fingertips to the back of Darren’s hand, running them over his knuckles, up to the delicate bone of his wrist. Darren looks over at him, bright eyes, bright smile, always bright like he can’t be anything else, even when he’s completely exhausted and falling apart, still shining like he doesn’t know how not to.  
  
He says this, “Pull over, Darren.”  
  
And Darren looks at him, bewildered, voice skeptical, “Right here? We’re bumper to bumper – “ and Chris – Chris cannot stand another moment in this car with this feeling without  _doing something_ , adrenaline spiking and making him feel like he’s going to tremble until he falls to pieces and he’s never been one for melodrama so he leaves the thought behind and he talks right over Darren, “Please? Just – yeah, right here, just pull over.”  
  
Darren does, and it takes a good 20 minutes because there are far too many cars on the road, bumper-to-bumper, horns blaring and shouts carrying across lanes, and parking is difficult enough to find even on the best days. Darren he keeps glancing at Chris with knit eyebrows, pale and wide-eyed.  
  
Chris gets out of the car and on his way out he says, “Come on, Darren, out, out,” and Darren’s pulling on his shoes and scrambling over to the passenger side, climbing out of the car, eyes on Chris, following him to the sidewalk without hesitation.  
  
~  
  
Chris is out of the car quicker than Darren thought possible and Darren’s tugging off his seat belt and climbing over the center console to follow him before Chris’s words even register.  
  
It’s sort of ridiculous, standing there on a New York sidewalk with Chris taking these deep, steady breaths like he just came out of an over-crowded elevator, turning in a slow circle. He’s running a hand through his air and he’s wearing Darren’s hoodie because he got cold in the car and his glasses are a little crooked. He’s a bit of a mess and looks like nearly a completely different person than the Chris Colfer that cuts a sharp figure in bespoke suits on red carpets and Darren thinks he’s entirely, entirely lovely.  
  
The lights around them are so bright and so close that it feels like he’s surrounded by stars. Darren stands as the only still figure in a completely packed sidewalk, bodies brushing past him on both sides. It smells like New York – dirty and sharp and cool, like food and people and maybe a little like sewer and it’s too cold and Darren has always, always loved this fucking city.

Chris seems to spot whatever it was he was looking for because then he’s lunging forward and grabbing Darren’s wrist, cutting them across the flow of people with his head down. Darren follows silently, confused but entirely compliant as Chris tugs him down the street a few paces once they get through the knot of people in the center, and then ducks to the side, into a thankfully empty alleyway.    
  
Chris lets go of Darren’s wrist, walking forward restlessly, and Darren keeps his back to the street, where the light is spilling over into the alleyway, creeping over the first half and throwing the last half almost entirely in shadows. Darren just watches Chris pace, waits; feels something slow and gentle loosen everything in him – watches Chris and thinks that he’d wait as long as possible for this man. Do anything,  _everything_ , feels it like something’s broken in his chest.  
  
Chris turns and looks at him, watches him for a moment and Darren can only stand there, hands loose as his side and palms turned out, like he’s there for Chris’s taking, offering everything. Darren wonders if Chris recognizes that in him – it’s terrifying like a free-fall and there’s no catching to be done because he’ll never stop falling. He doesn’t know where that leaves him – heart in his throat, in his hands, silver platters, golden spoons _;_ he gives everything he can, _would you like every part of me_?, and just hopes that Chris will accept it, thinks maybe he does, because he’s taking a step toward him, another and then another, like he can’t help it. Darren’s holding his breath.  
  
Chris comes close enough to touch, settles his hands on Darren’s shoulders, warm through his t-shirt, looking at him with these  _eyes –_ like Darren’s  _everything,_ like he’s  _everything,_ and Darren feels everything in him lift, lighting up, like he should be glowing and floating and  _effervescent_ with how everything within him is coming to life.  
  
Chris’s eyes look like they’d light the city and then he’s leaning in, pulling Darren toward him, and Darren knows, because this is an important thing, knows that this is the first time Chris has kissed him. Chris is crushing Darren to his body, arms like a vice around Darren’s shoulders, licking into his mouth and kissing him slow and hard like he’s memorizing the intricacies of it.  
  
He’s strong against him, all muscle and bone, and Darren sort of feels like he’s being taken apart and re-built all in one go and all he can do is hold on, one hand clenched into Chris’s sweater at the shoulder and the other winding around Chris’s waist, pulling him closer and feeling lit on fire, a heavy-slow burn that’s enveloping every part of him.  
  
Chris is making this soft, pained sound in his throat, and Darren can’t quite  _think,_ feels it hit low in his stomach, twisting him up. He can only gasp gently against Chris’s lips when they break apart to breathe, body curving into Chris’s.  
  
Chris is trembling in his arms and his eyes are still closed, body molding itself to Darren’s, like they’re the only thing holding each other up, dropping his head to Darren’s shoulder. Darren realizes that this was possibly the worst place to do this, out in public, in New York, where  _public_ in general is considerably more people than it would be otherwise, feels sweeping relief for the foresight that had Chris dragging them into an alley.  
  
Chris is finally speaking, murmuring softly into Darren’s neck like he can’t quite face up to it, “I love you too,” and he says it so helplessly, like he’s giving himself up to the feeling, like it’s a surrender, a cease-fire.

Darren honestly doesn’t give a fuck where they are, too-cold, dirty alleyway or no, if he gets Chris – like this or sarcastic or closed-off or cracked open and transparent like glass – any Chris, every Chris, he wants them all, will take them all.

Darren’s contemplating the possibility that if he moves he might go to pieces, right there in the alleyway, in the city that has lights that fool you into thinking they’re stars.  
  
He says, quiet and breaking a little, “I know, Chris,” because he did, he really did. Somewhere in that car he figured it out and he’d put his faith in it blindly, but that doesn’t stop him from being so desperately, painfully relieved he could  _cry._  
  
Chris huffs out a laugh, cracked down the middle but genuine, says, “How’d you know? I wasn’t even sure I wanted this. I wasn’t sure I wanted this feeling at all.”  
  
Darren smiles a little, tightens his arms around Chris and presses his lips to the nearest patch of skin he can – his ear.  
  
“Because you came with me,” he replies, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.  
  
Chris pulls back and one corner of his mouth is tucked up into a wry grin and he’s saying, “Of course.”  
  
Darren grins at him and pulls him close and whispers  _I love you_ against Chris’s lips and then kisses him through his choked laughter and feels like maybe this is the only place he could have ever ended up.  
  
~

Darren drives them to his loft in Tribeca, the one Darren says almost feels more like home than his place in LA, and it takes an  _ungodly_ long time. Chris is still jittery and shaking a little and he can’t seem to stop staring at Darren, at the way Darren looks like he’s lit up from the inside, light behind his eyes like that’s the only way it can escape his body. He keeps glancing at Chris, smile on his face like he can’t contain it, and Chris smiles back reflexively because it’s the sort of smile you can’t help but return.

They are quiet when they make their way into the building, the elevator, heading to the top floor. Chris doesn’t realize how tense his shoulders are, how tight his face is, until Darren reaches over and takes his hand, pulls him close, and Chris feels himself crack open, sharp and sudden, like everything solid and jagged-edged in him has crumbled.

Darren presses his lips to Chris’s neck, and Chris thinks of sitting on sun-warm benches, Darren draped over his side, pressing his grin into Chris’s skin. Darren’s strong hands and gentle touch and the patience inherent in all of it, and it sort of feels like unraveling, the way he lets his body sink into Darren’s.

The elevator doors open and Chris pulls away a little but can’t bring himself to pull away from Darren’s grip – can feels his guitar-calluses brushing the back of his hand, the heavy, solid warmth of it. Feels heat encase his bones at the way Darren squeezes his hand like a forewarning to not let go, like he thinks Chris might be thinking about it.

Darren’s loft is all open, expansive space. Gleaming wood floors and chipped, discolored half-brick walls, mismatched furniture that’s hyper-modern intermixed with vintage, thrift-shop pieces that you wouldn’t see anywhere else. There doesn’t seem to be any walls to break up the space except for the one separating the bathroom, but there’s a raised platform on the opposite end of the loft where the bed rests, a huge, mahogany, four-post that looks impossibly comfortable.

Chris takes it all in at a glance because Darren’s already leading him to the bed, but Chris thinks that even if he couldn’t see a thing, he’d know that it’s Darren’s place anyway. Like his room in San Francisco, it  _feels_ like him, resonates with his presence like Darren’s essence sinks into the foundation of things.

Darren brings him close again and wraps his arms around him, kisses Chris’s neck and then his jaw, his cheek, finally his lips, and by then Chris is smiling so wide he’s showing all his teeth.

Darren laughs, says quietly, smile-to-smile, “Stay.”

Chris laughs, breaking open on it, hard and aching and like a release, “I was hoping.”

~  
  
Darren's hands slide up Chris's back, all heavy, flat palms and nails scratching across skin. Chris's back arches, presses closer, his legs locked around Darren's hips - Darren's body, solid muscle and soft skin and so warm, thrumming with heat that seeps into Chris's body in turn.

Darren's head is ducked down, mouth soft and slick and teeth sharp as he sucks and bites Chris's neck, attaching to his adam’s apple and settling there, sending shivers shooting up Chris's spine like liquid lightning. Darren's hands are everywhere, fingertips digging in and grasping and mouth following closely, tongue tracing muscle, lines of heat all over Chris's body as Darren maps him out, carves a place for himself in Chris's skin until all Chris feels is a constant loop of Darren-Darren-Darren and it's all heat in his veins, heavy in his bones.  
  
Chris isn’t sure where his mind has gone, just knows it’s not in his possession, that his heart and his thoughts have dropped right out of him and it’s this constant loop of consciousness that he’s only half-aware of and that he can’t control the direction of even a little –

 _Let me feel your skin against my skin, feel the way our bodies work when they’re together, the way they come together, the way it feels like I know every inch of you. **I want to know every inch of you.**  I want to know every cluster of freckles, every dip of muscle and bone, the strength of you, the heat of you, the line of your spine, the slope of your shoulders, every bone in your hands, the way they trail fire, the way your fingers curl, nails biting into skin, finger-tips tracing muscle, the way you move and the way  **we** move. I want to see the way you smile, hear the way you laugh, breathless and broken, the way you look at me and the way I look at you and how we’re both lost and terrified but it’s okay because we’re both lost and terrified._  
  
 _Is this how it is, is this how it is, how can people stand it?_  
  
 _You’d take me to pieces and I'd let you and do you realize how terrifying that is for a boy from Clovis who didn’t know what friendship was until he was 18 and didn’t know what love was until he met you? Didn’t know the ways of desire, the way it fills you up, the way it makes your entire body hurt, until he met you? Do you have any idea?_  
  
 _Do you know that I feel like everything in me is rooted in you?_  
  
 _Everything, everything, everything._  
  
Darren’s voice, soft and gentle and raspy, breaking through with something devastating and honest, a reply to unspoken words, “I know, I know, I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: i make no profit from this work of fiction. and it is just that - a very creatively licensed work of fiction that did not happen and is entirely made up by my over-active imagination. both Chris and Darren are actual people and this is not Stranger Than Fiction so this is not true, real, nor dictating or documenting anyone’s actual life, etc., etc.


End file.
